


Plucked Up

by Momjeans



Series: Brought Back [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gastown, Gastown/Citadel disputes, Gen, Post Fury Road, Post Movie, Rescue Mission, furiosa drives the interceptor, lots and lots of Toast, mainly platonic furiosa/max, past implied abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:40:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5136791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Momjeans/pseuds/Momjeans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He bolts to get to her, but hands grab at his hair, his neck, his two cuffed wrists. The whites of his eyes show, and all he can do is watch her body being hauled away into the dark corridors, screaming desperately. </p><p>"Max!", her voice shrill and feral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I've finally sorta figured out formatting on here. I'm a lot more proud of this one than pt 1, but thank you for reading!!

She wakes up early again, peeling off her trousers to put on a pair of mechanics pants. She goes through the the morning routine of kitchen, Ace, and back to her room. Nibbling a piece of flatbread spread with bean paste, she checks her nose and lip in the mirror. Her nose blooms a fresh red bruise over the bridge, and her lip swells numbly. She takes a small shallow jar filled with amber honey, and sparingly spreads a thin layer over a few open cuts. Can't risk infection. Sticking her finger in her mouth, she feels around for the raw cut next to her bottom teeth where she was hit, and soothes honey into that too. The taste is nearly sickly sweet when she sucks it off the tip of her finger.

Dressing, she glances at Max, who is still sinking into the mattress. She doesn't wake him, but the loud sounds of her arm do. Immediately, he’s presented with the flatbread breakfast, a little cold now but nothing worth complaining about. He stops chewing when a stained grey shirt is dropped on his lap. He looks at it, and looks up at her with a little bit of a glare. She glares back.

"Mm.. Im alright" he says with a full mouth. She grunts a little judgmentally, and washes down breakfast with a couple swigs of water.

"Rig again today"

He rubs at his neck, swallowing. "Be out in a minute"

"Meet me in the garage then" her voice floats out of the room.

He drinks the water a little greedily, but careful to leave enough for her, and sits to rub his hands together, churning thoughts in his brain of staying, equal with thoughts of leaving

_Max!_

He turns his head at the invisible voice and there's nothing. Grunting, he shakes it off and begrudgingly lifts himself off the warm mattress

  
\------

When Furiosa feels a kick on the sole of her boot, she rolls out from underneath the engines. Expecting a war boy, she looks up to see who disturbs her work.

Max stands above her, a little out of place, wearing a grey shirt and those tattered suspenders.

"Engine?"

She nods, waving a hand for him to help her up. She hands him a mechanic's belt and they work for hours again, phenomenally efficient.

This rig is planned to have a double engine, just like the crashed one. But this machine is built to be bigger. A larger tanker to accommodate fewer trade runs.  
Like the green towers of the citadel, marking the horizon tall and proud, this rig will establish the Citadel. It's worked on tirelessly by the best metalworkers and black thumbs recruited.

They break for water.

"She looks good" Max mumbles, aweing at how quick the rest of the crew work. Furiosa scans the progress, looking out for flaws, but she does look a little proud. War boys scatter and weave through each other, working like a colony of insects.

"Building is quick." She says. "Forging is what took the most time, difficult with the rock riders. We work in shifts, nearly around the clock, so black thumbs don't tire and work gets done faster." She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "Joe would work boys to death. Nothing ever got built in good quality". Max scratches his ear for input on the conversation. "You'll need a car when it's done" she sighs a little.

He hums trying not to show that he's a little surprised. He hasn't thought about leaving for hours, not to mention any logistics of it.

"You'll most likely get a bike" she continues.

Again, he hums like he's agreeing.

He feels dumb for not thinking of it before. It hits him like an elbow in the gut.  
She doesn't need him. He has no part to play for her, he isn't useful. Sure, he helps with the rig but that was something she didn't ask for.

Back in the canyon it was "I need you here" and then he willingly handed her a loaded gun.

So it’s decided then, officially. He will not stay

"Rig first though" she says making direct eye contact, "You're a good mechanic". There's a slight uptone to her voice, nearly friendly. He grunts and nods. A compliment.

\---------------

On the fourth day Max is at the Citadel, the engine is finished. Final spikes are being welded, and faint memorabilia salvaged from the sacrificed rig is placed artfully in tribute. When Furiosa wasn't around, Capable etched "NUX" into the dashboard.

Ace is by her side, doing finishing touches, and Max stands nearby. Ace hands her a rag to wipe her hands clean.

"Gotta take her out" he says

Furiosa stands back to look at the machine for a moment. It looks astonishing. The cab stands three, maybe even four times as tall as any man. Heavy blades and hydraulics are on the front, making the rig look something like a train.

18 wheels, thick and cracked are lined with rusted chains and hubs have gnarly spikes. Double tanker, with separate basins for water, produce, mothers milk, and guzzoline. Fuel pod in the back.

"She looks real shine boss" Ace marvels.

The silence breaks. A young pup's voice echoes through stone tunnels.

"Furiosa!" The voice opens up into the garage, manic and loud. "Knowing!" The voice strains, "It's the knowing!"

Furiosa's stomach drops and her pupils tighten when she catches sight of the boy's white face.

"Toast! It's Toast!" He screams at her.


	2. Chapter 2

Breath is sucked from her lungs and the boy chokes between breaths  
"Gastown boys, they took her. Plucked her up. She was scouting on her bike, setting spikes-"

She doesn't need to hear the rest. Her body bolts to the main tower, weaving in between slums of people. She clammors up stairs to the milkers room where the telescope is, choking on her lungs the whole way up. Violently, she pushes her way to the telescope and looks through to see a trail of dust spreading on the horizon.

She can't hear Capable yelling her name until she shoves Furiosa away from the scope.

"Furiosa! What's going on!?"

Her chest is pounding and her eyes are wide. "Toast" she breaths loud, "They took Toast" Capable looks just as scared now, but she's rational.

"What do we do?" She demands more than asks. Furiosa goes from terrified to enraged in an instant

"Rig"

She turns and bolts down the stairs, before Ace, breathless, takes hold of her arm. Max is cursing under his breath steps behind from the sudden stop.

"Ay! Where are you going?" He growls at her.

"We're taking the rig" she grits back

"No, you're not"

"I am. I won't fucking lose her"

"Boss, you'll set off another bloody road war!" She goes to spit in his face before he knocks his forehead to hers, both fuming. 

"You're ruthless boss, but you ain't stupid". 

Her eyes singe with rage at him.

"I’m not gonna let you kill anyone else with another fucking rescue mission"

And that feels like a punch to her bad ribs, making them crack again. She feels rotten but she can't say anything back at him.

"Furiosa!" Capable calls down to them, "You'll want to see this".

Max huffs a little, back up the stairs then.

Reaching Capable peering into the scope, she marks letters on her wrist with a charcoal stub. Gastown blinks in the distance.

"Signals"

The letters form words reading "more water, will negotiate".

"Now, we go now." Furiosa barks. Ace grunts irritably, regarding their earlier conversation.

"At dawn" he tells her.

"Too long, what if she's not there anymore"

He grinds his teeth, "You'll need a convoy, bullets, thundersticks. We don't have the resources for war"

Furiosa's ignores him disrespectfully, "We take a convoy of ten. Ready in 200 minutes. Spread the word".

Ace makes a noise to head for the garage, and Capable signals back to Gastown.

She turns to look at Max, unsure of where he fits in with this.

"I need you here".

\----

Max loads and cleans every gun in the cab with its respectful bullets and Furiosa organizes a convoy frantically, choosing her current trade crew.

Toast’s younger soldiers desperately offer themselves up to go with them, to find Toast, but she stays stubborn. Ace Stays back, in case anything should happen.

Furiosa’s face is hard with anger, jaw clenched tight and a black scarf around her neck. There are knives hidden in her boots and a pistol on her hip. She lifts herself into the rig, which is just as impatient to get on the road as she is.

“Convoy ready!” Ace bellows, “Hooked on!”

She clicks in her half decorated wheel, and flips kill switches. Max watches for the sequence and the rig roars to life under her palms, warm, thick vibrations send through the cab. The engine growls, deeply, eager. Her boot pumps the gas pedal, and the pistons churn, driving the rig to roll out of the three towers. Effortlessly it tows the tanker down the straight shot to gastown, charging through rubble.

The scout bikes, two convoy cars, and crew on top look puny in comparison to the monstrous size of the machine. Furiosa however, looks anything but small. She fits to the rig like a wheel to its axle. Shifting into a higher gear, the transmission flows through seamlessly.

“So,” Max murmurs, “what are we doing?”

She doesn't take her eyes off the road, and her knuckles are white around the wheel.

“We’ll negotiate with their council for a reasonable trade”. She checks her convoy in mirrors. “No telling if They’ll give Toast back. If they don't, we find her and bail out at whatever cost”

It’s sloppy and thrown together. She’s going into this completely unprepared and irrational, and Max knows it.

“Could be anywhere” he reminds her. The sprawl of gastown is huge, impossible to find anyone.

“No. Toast is too valuable. Healthy”. Furiosa knows gastown trade all too well. She knows where they keep brides.

The drive is excruciating. It's 15 long minutes of 65 mph. She can't risk going any faster, a brand new engine could overheat and blow at any second.

When they meet the bridge at gastown, gatekeepers are nearly reluctant to let the rig across in fear of it’s sheer weight. Soldiers marvel at the size and beauty of the new war machine.  
Docking in the trade spot, she looks at max before leaving.

“Stay in the rig”

She climbs out and is addressed by a messenger, dressed in a tattered suit, with one eye. He spits as he talks. Anger seethes under her skin, but she smothers it, forcing herself to keep calm and professional. Furiosa was never good at talking with things like this.

She speaks first.

“The Citadel is willing to hear your council’s proposal”  
The messenger looks through her and disregards what she says.

“A trade has been composed duly by our council,” his lips snarl with words. “Your general will be returned in exchange for an increase in product; 9000 extra units of aqua-cola, 1500 extra units of milk, and a 30% increase in produce. you will receive the same amount of goods from Gastown as you do presently”

She wants to hit him. It's too much. Even in the past 700 days they haven't figured out exactly how finite the water table is. Produce trade increase means less food rations which means civilian uproar. The milking mothers current output is permanent. They choose their numbers and it stays that way, by their own will.  
She wants to spit in his face but she doesn't.

"Your numbers are too demanding, they're not reasonable. They'll upset further trade balance."

The messenger still looks through her.

"In the event that you do not comply with these terms you will meet with the council themselves. You will have to wait until a meeting is available. You are permitted to remain-"

"We wait" she cuts him off, turning to her crew.

The convoy settles in their cars, and in nooks on the top of the rig. Minutes of waiting bleed into hours. She oils the gears on her arm and picks sand out with a needle. Night begins to fall and leather masks watch them. Bodies painted a bile yellow circle the rig, bored out of their minds.

The entire time Furiosa's blood is boiling. Toast is in there, somewhere. She is so close to getting her but now she's just sitting, useless. Max sees how uneasy she is, and needs to level her in case she does anything rash, or drives herself insane.

"Hey," he says trying to console her, "You'll get her"  
She says nothing, bites the edge of her thumb, and looks out the window. She can't say anything, even if she wants to, realizing how sloppy this operation is.

Guards are becoming dreary, struggling to stay upright. Most of the younger, yellow gas town boys have retired for the night, leaving only the few faceless masks covered in leather and decorated with nails. To both their surprise, after a couple hours, many of them fall asleep with their backs to each other. It's been too long now. Blood is pooling in Max's feet from being upright for so long.  
Fuck, she thinks. They're starving them out, waiting for them to crack.  
The hangnail on her thumb is bleeding now, and Max had just finished re-cleaning the fifth gun.

"You need rest" he says gravelly.

She does, she looks exhausted, red and purple around the eyes. Everyone in the convoy is sleeping, but her and Max. She reminds herself, she needs to be smart, so she takes a blanket and curls it over her shoulder. The prosthetic pinches her skin as she settles against the door.

"So do you" she says softly.

"Mm.. No," he objects "m' alright"

She tries to steady herself and breath slow. It doesn't work. She's shaking inside. Thoughts obsessively run through her mind about where they have Toast, if they've hurt her, what they're doing to her. The docking port is deathly quiet but her ears are ringing.

Max jumps in the seat when she quickly runs her hand over her head, and sits upright. "Confucamus.." she mutters.  
She twists gears on her arm, balls up the blanket, and starts loading an extra handgun.

"That's it. We're getting her". Her voice is steel.

Max is already cocking his gun.


	3. Chapter 3

He creeps out of the cab when she jumps out, rifle in a ready position. She walks through the port like she owns Gastown, and leads him through halls lined with creaking pipes and flickering lights. The deeper she leads him, the more elaborate the halls become. Metalwork curls up the walls and bare lightbulbs are replaced with old-world chandeliers. 

Finally they meet guards. 

"Main buildings locked down" one growls behind a mask. 

They stand before what might have once been an elevator door. 

"We need to go down" she demands when light washes over her face. 

"It's the imperator!" One yells, and they both break out sprinting to bring Max and Furiosa down. "Aid!" The other cries to the tunnels. 

She breaks the first shot, splitting between the guard's eyes. The other one charges into her while she's in the middle of aiming the gun again. Max wants to shoot but he can't in case the bullet gets her too. 

Boots thump through the hallways towards them, and half a dozen more guards are tackling them. 

Furiosa fights ruthlessly; a bullet in the thigh, the shoulder, through one temple and out the other. Max grabs hold of a guard's meat cleaver and swings at any limb near him. A Gastown boy trips Furiosa and she falls on her back. He stomps on her ribs with force and she doubles over howling. Max lodges the meat cleaver in between the shoulder blades of the Gastown boy, and he falls. He grabs her hand and lifts her to her feet, just as she brings the rifle over his shoulder, killing a guard just feet behind him. They fight back to back when another one shoves Furiosa up against the elevator door. Her metal claw digs into the flesh on his neck, and she knees his groin to swing him around, pinning his body against the door instead. Shoving the door open and releasing the grip on his neck, she plows her boot into his chest. The Gastown boy falls backwards waving his arms, crashing down the elevator shaft. She doesn't hesitate to kill like that, and Max tries not to think about it. 

They both stand among bodies, panting and smeared with blood. 

"We keep moving" she grits. 

They rush through the maze of halls, avoiding whatever clamoring and yelling they hear. They stop in a dark corner, breathing hard.

"The vault where they keep girls has a double entrance, two sets of doors" she coughs. "Entrance to the left, 10 guards total" she nods in the respective direction. 

Max grunts and nods to her, when she swings around the corner after reloading her gun again, and aims, shooting the metal padlock on the first entrance, and kicking the double doors open. 

They are swarmed with guards. 

Soldiers come at all angles, more than they can count (definitely more than ten). Max and Furiosa's bodies are fatigued from fighting, muscles not responding when they need them too. They get messier. Bone crunches bone but they are smothered. 

Max feels a cold cuff around his wrist. 

"Keep that one alive!" A voice shouts. 

He's too focused on getting free before he hears a defeated grunt from Furiosa. He looks for her, pure panic. He lays his eyes on glimpses of her body, flailing in between the grips of multiple guards. She screams, straining every vocal chord and tearing every muscle to get free. 

He bolts to get to her, but hands grab at his hair, his neck, his two cuffed wrists. The whites of his eyes show, and all he can do is watch her body being hauled away into the dark corridors, screaming desperately. 

"Max!", her voice shrill and feral. 

He strains to get to her, but he's blindfolded and bound, her voice echoing away.   
\-------------------  
She is dragged through pools of fluid on the floor, cloth between her teeth, muffling any effort at noise. Her muscles singe with lactic acid and her lungs are acting up, convulsing and tensing in her chest. Blood clots her nose, making breathing more difficult than it already is. Hands are grabbing from every direction, groping at her legs, tearing at her arms and the harness of her prosthetic tugs on her rib cage. She fights tooth and nail like an animal, outnumbered. 

Her body is thrown into an empty cellar that smells of sulfur and rust. They bind her wrist to her prosthetic arm, and her ankles together with chain. She's left on the cold, damp cell floor, blindfolded, when the door slams shut.   
Furiosa feels scared, but mostly stupid, near hysteria.   
\-----  
Max is dragged to the other cells, three paces wide and two long. The walls are perforated with holes big enough for hands to grab at him. Diseased and mangled cell prisoners are crammed together, living in the walls and left to beg for scraps.  
A guard takes off his blindfold, which is some form of punishment when he sees moaning faces through the walls. His wrists get hooked to pipes when the guards start speaking.

"Eh ain't this the smeg from the thunderdome?" One grunts "killed them buzzards with a flare?"   
"Doesn't matter who'e was" the other growls as they walk out, arguing with each other. 

He feels fucked. Doesn't know what to do. He's not on his own this time, his actions affect other people, and he realizes that.

So he waits. If he fights now he will lose, and so will she. 

Furiosa sits chained, shaking in the cell without any space for sunlight. No concept of time. That’s the worst part. It isn't how her lungs are creaking, how she wheezes for air, how her nose is surely broken, or how her ribs are cracked. It’s that she has no idea how long she's been sitting, where her crew is, if they’re okay. Or Toast.  
Toast. 

Time is skewed, minutes, hours, days, lose meaning. 

A door creaks open, interrupting her focused breathing. Boots tap the ground and come to her feet, crunching rubble and filth under the soles, and a hand yanks at the blindfold on her head to reveal a stocky man standing above her. Dirty fingers reach inside her mouth, between her teeth to take out the cloth. The moment it's free, her teeth snap at the fingers, crunching down and nearly breaking leathery skin. The guard curses loudly and another swings his fist to her jaw, making her grip release and her head snap to the side. 

"Right then" the stocky man snarls. 

She knows this man. Gastown colonel.

"The council has decided there will be no negotiation". Furiosa cracks her jaw and glares at him. "We will keep your girl, and you will agree to the new trade terms", he sighs like he hates his job. "Otherwise, your second will take the punishment"

Her second? Who are they talking about? Ace? They don't know Ace. Ace isn't here. 

Oh. 

Max. 

Max. 

"Decapito" the colonel picks at his teeth. 

No. No, she won't let them kill Max. It doesn't even register to her as a choice. He gave his blood to her. Now she will shed hers for him.

“There will be no agreement” she snaps back. 

The two men grab and pinch at her skin to bring her up on two feet. 

“Right” the colonel sighs again, Flicking a small, sharp blade to her chest. “How about now?” he casts hot, gross breath over her face.

“I do not break” She growls. 

Quickly, the colonel flicks the blade across the warm skin on her chest, leaving a long clean cut, spilling a thin, hot curtain of blood, and she makes no sound.

“Let’s go see how your friend feels about it then” he says humorously. 

As a guard comes behind Furiosa to escort her, and she swings her skull back, cracking her cranium into the cartilage on his nose. 

“Bloody bitch” the colonel turns to hit her, before she rebounds her head to smash the front of his face. 

The second guard lunges towards her, but she drives her sharp elbow up into his gut, and swings her boot to his ear, knocking him out. The gastown boy with a now broken nose goes for her ankles, and she stomps on his seemingly fragile hand, tendons snapping beneath the force, and his voice cries out in gurgling pain.

Struggling with her bound hand, she grabs a fallen handgun and checks the chamber, half full. For a second she thinks about putting a bullet in the colonel’s skull, but she doesn't because that's messy. Would create debt. 

He reaches for a gun under his Uniform, but she presses his free hand down to the ground with her knee and presses the nose of the gun onto where his thumb meets his palm. He chances it, and grabs his gun anyways. The crack of a bullet hitting stone ground explodes sound off the walls, and there's a cavity of exposed burnt flesh where his thumb used to be. 

She breaks the chain around her ankles with a bullet and bolts from the cell to dark corridors. Hiding in a crook she catches her breath. Her wrists need to be free. Her prosthetic arm isn't responding correctly, motor must have been busted up when she was dragged away. Can't aim well enough to shoot at the chain. So she unbuckles leather straps and lifts the harness over her her head to get a better angle, and shoots that chain too. Instantly she regrets wasting a bullet, there could have been another way. 

Strapping her prosthetic back on while holding a gun has always been a struggle, but it's harder in pitch black, jogging, and her head is pounding with adrenaline but her body is fatigued. She weaves through tunnels and away from guards investigating the disruptive gunshots, and follows any familiar landmarks.


	4. Chapter 4

Max waits. Patiently ignoring the whines and groans of prisoners neighboring him. The noise is split by the shrieking of his cell gate opening. A single guard with a rifle and a leather mask walks in, and starts to release Max from the pipes. He was about to swing his elbow to his neck when he hears the voice belonging to the guard. 

"You're coming with me" 

Not a man's voice.  
"Fucking fool" 

Toast. 

Chains fall from his raw wrists and he is so thankful. He takes out the fabric stuffed in his mouth and moves his tongue around between his teeth. Toast hands him a handgun and takes off her mask to really identify who she is. 

She has grown so much since he last saw her. She's still every bit as beautiful, but she has more stature now. Her shoulders are held back in strict, effortless posture. Her fox like eyes glow in a pragmatic focus.

"You alright?" She asks looking him up and down. 

"Was gonna ask you the same" Max retorts, wondering how she got here. 

"Where's Furiosa?" She skips the subject. 

"Got taken away. Don't know where"

Toast lets out a disgruntled "humph" and cocks her rifle. "Follow me" 

Turning the corner he found two slumped guards, bleeding out. Toast pulls off a mask from one and offers is to Max. The guard's eyes are still open and a steady trickle of blood spills from his mouth. He hesitates from taking the mask. 

"Wear it or be killed likely"

She's right, so he reluctantly pulls the mask over his head and the material is still warm and smells of breath. 

"Let's find our girl" Toast grits. 

\----  
Furiosa hobbles along the halls, struggling with coordination. The long cut on her chest stings a hot white pain and blood is seeping into the cloth on her top. Her left thigh burns with open flesh, probably from a bullet grazing it earlier. 

Fuck, her lungs. The contract and struggle at air, like every breath will choke her. Lack of oxygen makes the burning in her muscles worse. She's desperate and hopeless now, a little blinded with panic and survival. Surprisingly the halls are quiet, just echoing with sounds of dripping pipes. She holds back coughing fits and builds pressure in her skull, making the headache she didn't know she had worse. She cant hold back anymore, so she hacks out coughs and scratches at her throat like it'll help. 

The sound of a calf tie zipping is shrill in her ears. 

Her flesh hand is caught in the tie, cold and thin on her neck. It's yanked back and the pull nearly breaks skin. She holds the gun tight I her caught hand and an ugly voice growls in her ear.

"Gotcha' "

The guard grabs her hand over the gun and lodges it under her jaw to dig into her skin. She stomps on his boot and elbows him in the groin. She succeeds in getting her hand free from the calf tie and slips it over her head. The doubled over guard is knocked to the ground when her boot hits his skull, and she stomps his head again, maybe snapping his neck. 

Two other sets of boots echo down the tunnels. Confused with adrenaline and violence, she shoots blindly in that direction. A familiar grunt sounds off with the thud of a body. She marches towards them with every intention of killing them both at point blank. Aiming her gun just feet away from the wounded guard, the second one gets in the way of her clean shot, waving his hands. 

"No no! Stop!" 

Max's voice. 

"Who the fuck is that?" She asks deliriously. 

Max pulls the terrible mask off his head and then off the other guards, revealing Toast's face in the adjusted dark. Max is pressing his scarf to the outside of her thigh and Toast's expression is blank. 

"Bullets gone through" he says. 

Toast is in full shock. She's never been shot before. 

She would scream "Medic!" Over a wounded war boy but she's never known how it feels. She feels numbness and adrenaline. Was she even shot? She feels blood gushing but it doesn't hurt. Seconds later she hears a voice, Furiosa's, panicked. The short high of dopamine wears off and everything is searing pain. It hurts too much to scream. Hot tears stream down her cheeks and her mouth opens to yell but only cracked noises come out. She looks at Furiosa and locks eyes with her, before snapping her hand at her elbow, holding on tight like it's a lifeline. Furiosa is welling up with uncontrollable tears and she's trying her best to apply pressure to Toast's leg. Toast is croaking out inaudible words and Furiosa cuts her off. 

"It'll be okay" she chokes, sounding crazed. "You'll be okay" 

She takes off her over shirt and offers it up to the makeshift Bandage. Max rips a strip and ties it above the wound. 

"Artery is grazed" he says, tying the tourniquet tight with his teeth. 

Furiosa see's what he's doing and panics even more. She's known too many war boys who've lost a limb like this. But not Toast, Toast can't lose her leg. Not because of her. She can't. But no tourniquet means no blood, so she lets him. 

She looks up at the distant sound of heavy bodies coming for them. 

"Gotta get out" Max says calmly, knotting off the last of the fabric. 

Furiosa tries to shake herself of hysteria, and they both scoop her body up to carry her. Toast yells out in pain and her eyes are shut tight. Her eyeballs sting of tears and they feel as if they are being pushed back into her skull. She tries not to focus on it, but she can't help it. Her leg. Her thigh. Flesh is torn and raw, not there anymore. Her leg throbs from what Max bound, and she can feel it going numb with pins and needles. 

Max catches sight of the open elevator door, and bodies slumped before it, and he turns to where Furiosa first led him. Mental maps are a tick for him. 

A light appears at the crack of the door they came through.

"Here, take her" she tells Max. 

Seeing the sliver of light makes her completely determined to get out of here, and she kicks it open. Her arm feels weak and her knees are buckling a little. 

Max carries Toast towards the rig. She looks right through his face and clings to the fabric of his jacket, biting her lip not to scream, but she looks nothing like anything fragile. 

Furiosa feels relieved to finally see open sky. Early morning. Not even dawn yet, still stars out. 

"Get her in the cab, you drive" she demands. 

An early bird war boy quietly shakes the others awake and she signals at them to stay quiet. 

"Boss what's going on? What happened?" One asks her whispering. 

"We're leaving" she says in that tone that you don't argue with. 

Max flips kill switches and the engine roars awake, bringing attention to any Gastown guard's who shouldn't have been sleeping on their morning shift. Several Guards flow out of the door they came through, and the rest stand on station around the rig, pointing guns. 

The colonel pushes through them with a bloody hand in a bandage. 

"Hold fire!" His voice booms out. 

His face meets hers. He is pissed and bleeding, huffing hard. 

"There will be no agreement" she mocks to him. 

"Gate keepers hold your marks!" He bellows. 

A line of yellow bodies block the bridge, flames pointed to the rig. 

Furiosa cranks a large nozzle open on the fuel pod, and sour guzzoline spews out onto the ground. It floods the docking port and flows past the boots of gastown boys and around of Citadel back convoy bikes. Every soldier stands unsteady at the fluid pooling around their feet. She stares down the colonel unphased, with guzzoline splashing at her feet. She reaches for a flare out of her back pouch, and bites it open, igniting the red burst of flame across the blue dark. Gastown boys look at ther guzz drenched boots and glanced around each other, waiting for orders to bail and Furiosa holds the flare out, threatening. 

“You will let us pass” she warns, tilting her jaw up. 

Toast is slumped against max panting hard when she catches sight of the bright magenta bursting from Furiosa’s hand. She wants to go home. She wants to see her sisters. She Definitely does not want to lose her right leg. 

The colonel spits back. 

“Not until an agreement is made, you one armed-”

The flare drops. 

Flames lick her heels when she climbs the back of the tanker and unhooks the fuel pod, just before the fire reaches up into it. The rig is charging forward with convoy cars ahead, and the bikes speed past her tires, kicking up flames behind them. Fire floats along the shallow lake of fluid and engulfs anything in its path. Gastown boys slip and ran as fast as they can, lucky with their fire retardant paint. 

“Hold your marks!” the colonel screams at the gatekeepers, in the middle of a burning mess. Sand chambers release onto the fire to smother it and Gastown boys clamor and panic around each other to escape.

Max is on the edge of his seat when he opens up the engine fully, and floors he gas. Citadel war boys scream “Fang it!” around him. Tire chains dig into the rubble and at the last moment, one gatekeeper bails and then the rest do. The machine barrels across the bridge and Furiosa is climbing to the front and a large splotch of brown is forming on her undershirt from the razor cut. Finally climbing into the cab she sits next to toast, who is sweating profusely and panting. 

“Elevate her leg.” Max says.

“I know” 

When she tries to adjust Toast’s body she yelps out in pain. 

“How does it feel?” she asks tearing at her pant leg to see red bruising all over her thigh. Toast nearly laughs, remembering angharad and her leg. 

“It hurts” she chokes wittily. Furiosa ignores the response, realizing the rhetorical ness of the question. Only toast could say something like that now. Maybe Dag as well. 

The flesh below Toasts tourniquet is bruised and turning purple, and most of the bleeding has subsided already. She won't let Toast lose her leg. It took months for Toast to convince her to give her ranks as an official general, even more to go out into war. She doesn't want it to be like this. She knows how it is to lose part of you like that and she won't let that happen to toast. So she starts loosening the tight bandage, bit by bit. Max glances over. 

“No, no, that needs to stay on” 

“You've never lost a limb” she talks back 

“Its either she loses her leg or she loses her blood.” he grunts “she’ll go cold in minutes if you loosen that any more”. 

Toast looks at Furiosa with brows stitched and red swollen eyes to nod at her, like she’s okay with it. 

Max checks the mirrors to glance at speeding war boy bikes, and a smouldering mess on the horizon. No explosion surprisingly. Gastown is always well prepared for a fire. Thankfully, no pursuit vehicles or polecats on their bumpers either. They were fucking lucky. 

Capable had been watching at the scope all night. She has known something has gone wrong but not what, until she sees the smudge of fire underneath the smouldering black cloud billowing from Gastown. A yellow flare bursts out from the rig fanging it back to the Citadel. She snaps into action and yells to the war boy at her side.

“Lower the lifts! Get medical down to the garage! Now!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOOO many people in this awesome fandom are amazingly talented and I owe every bit of inspiration to them so thank you all!!


	5. Chapter 5

Cheedo is ready at the lifts with a vuvalini at her side, along with a small medical crew. She holds a first aid case in her thin arms and her heart is beating through her chest. She uses her fingers to tap at her collarbones, focusing on the reverberations. She knew that eventually this would happen, they weren't safe up in the vault anymore. She also knew that it would probably be toast, always out on her bike, with the war boys, not taking care of herself. Cheedo just never prepared herself for it when the news was relayed to her, and she hated, hated, that she has to stay back ignoring her nervous ticks. 

In the 9 minutes of panic down the strip of asphalt leading home, the sun peeks out along the horizon, washing the stone walls of the citadel in their sandstone red.

Toast is tired, delirious from the past 20 minutes. She feels like she needs to just sleep, like her body is shutting down but the pangs of white hot pain won't let her, nor the throbbing pins and needles on her leg. She can't look at her thigh, it's too gruesome. The skin is swollen and shiny around the tight strip of Furiosa's shirt, skin is bruising and turning sour, creeping up her leg. 

The rigs engine rolls itself up to the lift and Max locks the wheels in place. A crew boy unhooks the tanker from the cab, and it rises up with creaking gears, along with Cheedo’s medical group.

Immediately, Cheedo climbs into the back of the cab, pushing past Furiosa to bend over her sister. Toast fumbles at Cheedo’s wrist, and clings tight. She touches under her ear, below her thumb, her forehead, and listens to her mouth for breathing. 

“What happened?” She questions checking the makeshift bandages hoarded against her thigh. Furiosa swallows hard and Max answers. 

“Got shot”

She sees the tourniquet and checks the tightness with two fingers. 

“Artery?”

“Mm.. Think so” 

Cheedo shoots him a look to kill, “what do you mean you think so”

Max looks down and flickers his eyes away to hum and scratch at his ear, “er..dark, in a rush, couldn't chance it”

She purses her lips and franticly unties the fabric, leaving a valley of skin in Toast’s purple, inflated thigh. 

“Hnngg.. Aah, fuck” she groans shakily. 

Max stops himself from lunging to tie it back on, “she could bleed out” he tries to object. 

“She could lose a leg” Cheedo continues her work. 

Toast feels an overwhelming flow of blood back into her thigh, not to mention the sudden return of feeling to her nerves. Cheedo peels off the blood soaked fabric on her outer thigh to check raw, exposed flesh. The wound isn't like a bullet hole, more like a cavity taking a chunk out of the side of her thigh, skin torn and muscle tissue swollen, bleeding a bright electric red. Cheedo watches blood slowly seep more and more over the wound, and nothing spurts. Good. 

“Artery is missed but she's still hurt” Cheedo presses her medical cloth onto the flesh. “Get her up to the ward!” She yells over her shoulder to the crew. She touches the side of Toast’s cheek with the palm of her hand and looks into her rich dark eyes, swollen with tears “you won't lose your leg darling” she smiles at her. 

\----

The medical ward has been set up in the vault for the past some 600 days, plenty of light to work, and the best air quality in the citadel. Fully ventilated and filtered. Toast lays in a cot, barely strong enough to even hold just her. Cheedo has pressed yarrow plant to her wound, coagulating blood and numbing the tissue, and then seals three sides of a bandage. Toast’s throat is dry from heaving sobs and her cheeks feel tight and fragile from saltwater. She has nothing left right now, she's drained and she feels like she needs to sleep for a whole seven days. All her sisters loom over her, Capable kneading at her hand, Cheedo checking vital signs over and over, and Dag twirling her dirt caked fingers through wisps of her hair. First time that they've been all together at once in awhile. Toast loves them but it's too much right now, she's numbed and needs to be alone. 

“What happened?” capable asks again, desperate to know. 

“Max and Furiosa tried to get me out, got shot in the proces”. The sound of her own voice is overwhelming for her headache. Her teeth are too fragile for the vibrations of her vocal chords, and the light washing through the stained glass makes her feel like she's going blind. 

“By who?” Capable investigates further.

“Doesn't matter” mumbles Toast, and Capable looks dissatisfied. 

“She's lucky though” Cheedo says searching through drawers, “just missed a major artery” 

“Bad shot” Dag chimes in sarcastically, receiving a glare from capable. 

“You have a headache right?” Cheedo asks Toast, “here, take this” she offers her a chalky pill and a canteen of water. “Aspirin” 

She doesn't hesitate to swallow the pill.   
\---  
Behind a threadbare curtain, Furiosa slides off her pants and rests to sit on a cot. The trousers slump at her feet, unwashed, sticky with sweat and dirt. She lets the calloused pads of her feet settle on the stone floor, a little warm from sunlight. The absence of the security of cloth against her legs makes her skin prick up a little, but she's too exhausted and frayed to think about modesty. Max cleans his hands religiously, scrubbing off long caked dirt and filth, even beneath his fingernails. Grit and sand settle at the bottom of the now murky bowl of warm, sudsy water when he dries off his hands. He threads a needle (and is successful the first time to Furiosa’s surprise) and kneels before her, looking up at her before he touches the gash on her thigh. She licks her teeth and looks at his fingers expertly holding the needle. 

“You know what you’re doing then?” 

“mm.. yeah” he hums. 

Furiosa breathes out and he focuses on the grazed bullet wound, about the length of his thumb, nothing major. He presses the cut together and she winces under her skin, before he sinks the needle into her flesh. She lets him work, and keeps breathing, eventually getting used to the sensation of thread sliding through her skin. He hits a particularly tender nerve and her fits clench around the edge of the cot and her jaw drops. 

“Ahh..h” 

He whispers “sorry” and keeps working, so she bites her tongue. Instead, she focuses on pressing a cloth to the razor cut on her chest, which has done a very good job at healing itself quickly, blood already clotting. 

“You alright?” Max asks. 

“hnng..” she winces, “yeah. Don’t know about the next couple days though. Depends on how much damage was done, could be consequences”. He hums back and laces another stitch, pulling skin. “You leaving?” she breathes, looking at him. He knots off thread and breaks it with his teeth. 

“Mmm.. not yet” he mumbles. 

Furiosa hums and feels a bit better.

\----  
The following day Furiosa tells Capable exactly what happened over breakfast in the crowded mess hall with Max at her side, shoveling in food. Capable doesn’t eat at all, she just listens with wide eyes, noting every detail and taking them into account. When Furiosa is done explaining, Capable asks the question that's been sitting impatiently on her tongue for the past 60 seconds. 

“How many people?”

Furiosa looks up from her in the middle of a bite and swallows. 

“uh, you mean dead?”

Capable looks at her hard, “yes, dead”

Furiosa tucks into her meal again. “Ten definitely, three maybe, around thirty caught in the fires, don’t know what happened to them” 

Capable sits back uneasy, chewing her lip. “Alright then, we’ll just wait and see what happens”

Things like this were not uncommon with Joe before, but repercussions were easily dealt, with the trade of brides, produce, water, or corpses. The numbers and barter was controlled. But in the past 700 days, gastown, bullet farm, and every other settlement within 100 klicks of the Citadel has been trying to suck them dry, and capable has just been getting a handle on treaties and negotiation. 

\----

Lo and behold, the messenger comes around the next morning, kicking dirt up from her bike. Cheedo meets her at the docking station and is given a scroll from one of the many messenger bags towed on her small body. She’s given rations and water in payment.

The girl is petite and wirey for her age, but reliable, called herself Hermes. Rightfully so; She's the fastest and lightest on a bike, and will zip across the wasteland faster than any raider. Furiosa tries not to get jealous when she meets her, filled with thoughts of her younger self, tearing up the wastes, wind pulling matted hair back. 

“Thanks Hermes” Capable sighs and scans the document. 

“See you got yourself into some shit then?” she squints, going through her payment. 

“mm.. yeah, hopefully it works out” 

“Toast around?” Hermes asks curiously.

“no no, she's… uh..” Capable trails off, distracted. 

Hermes huffs and lifts her leg over her bike. “Well tell her I said hi would ya?” 

Capable mouths words at the scroll and hermes growls under her breath, to kick off her bike onto her next mission. 

She makes her way back to the ward, where she had been staying by Toast’s side, even when she wasn't asked to. Capable read by gaslight and made sure toast was breathing, dressing and redressing her wounds. 

She saunters to Toast’s cot, who's lying down, bored out of her mind. 

“Hermes came by, got a scroll from gastown” she sighs sitting down. 

“Hermes was here?!” Toast snaps upright, immediately yelping from sharp pain and then growling to settle back down.

“Yeah,” she looks at Toast grimacing in bed “why?” 

Toast nearly blushes and grumbles instead, hiding her face in blankets. “No reason”

Capable smiles and bites her tongue, “What? Do you two get on well?”

She buries her face deeper into blankets and muffles something like “shut up..” feeling her face glow with heat. 

Capable continues to read and it makes her want to tear her hair out. 

“fuck”

“What?” Toast mumbles. 

“They're really, really angry. You guys did a lot of damage”

“We did damage?” Toast snaps, “They took me!”

“I know but, this is gastown. They're just getting more and more thirsty. Your fires made them particularly parched”

Toast pulls a blanket over her shoulder and settles uncomfortably, “Schlangers..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sideyeing this story for forever, and finally got back on it, so thank you all so much if youre still reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmkay here's a long chapter, finally

Capable organizes a council within the hour, and by noon people are crammed in something like a circle, sitting on chairs, crates and even laps. They gather at the back of the skull in the side of the Citadel wall, a fresh spring of water churning behind them, gears creaking. Representatives chatter with gossip, laughing with one another and whispering in each other's ears over the whole Gastown endeavour. Capable is dead tired from staying up all night and working all day, crunching numbers over Gastown’s ridiculous requests. She looks at the sundial and fuck it's only twelve and the first council meeting hasn't even begun. She can't crunch numbers, probabilities, or strategies anymore, just the phrase “greedy, greedy fuckers” has been playing and replaying in the back of her head. Dag sits beside her on the ground, bonnet on her head and legs crossed with her girl in her legs, biting at her fingers. She feels annoyed with the meeting, every ten seconds sitting down is a seed she could have planted, weeds she could have uprooted, compost to be turned into soil. Capable unintentionally sighs with anguish and Dag looks up at her. 

“You look like hell” 

“Feel like it” Capable whispers back to her. 

She really really can't deal with quieting down anyone in the room, yelling wouldn't do anything and her headache is already throbbing. Cheedo stands beside her and licks her lips, this is going to be difficult and she has a million other things to do right now. Furiosa and Ace sit next to each other in a corner, both loathing and keeping away from the friendly chatter. Max sits a space away from them, wrapping bandages around cuts on his hands. 

“Alright” Cheedo tries to be heard. The incessant chatter doesn't stop. “Alright!” She raises her voice, still no response. 

Capable rings a heavy bell harshly, and then, finally, everyone stops to look at her. 

“Council has begun” she says with a deep tone, like she’s not to be messed with right now. She sighs, “as I'm sure you're all aware of, we have had a recent battle with Gastown. Some of their raiders took Toast, our best general, hostage to barter for an increase in trade. Their demands were originally as follows: 9000 extra units of water, 1500 extra units of mothers milk, and a 30% increase in produce, without any gaining product back” 

A milking mother representative, Adina, wipes her forehead and puffs her cheeks at the request, they could never turn out that much milk in 30 days, how many milking mothers did they think they had? They would need five times the amount at that rate. 

Capable continues context “seeing as these numbers are too high demanding, and they unlawfully kidnapped our high ranking general, Furiosa (she doesn't mention Max, nearly forgets him) retrieved Toast without settling an agreement.”

Furiosa cracks her knuckles and grinds her teeth. She knows the council is what's best, but it explains everything so crystal clear and condescending in comparison to the violence and desperateness of real life.

“In the process, Gastown reports 15 of their men dead, and 27 heavily injured. Their colonel lost a thumb which is something he is particularly vengeful about. The scroll I received last morning demands a continuous trade of 6000 extra units of water, 300 units of mothers milk, and 15% increase in produce, with a measly 5% increase of Gastown goods back to us.” 

The council unsettles, and grumbles in their seats. Dag scrubs her eye with her hand. 

“And that's not all” Capable sighs, again, “Gastown has presented us with a debt for the damages done”. She smiles, purely annoyed, and the council shifts in their seats again. Max looks up from stitching a rip in his jacket and Furiosa rests her elbows on her knees. Capable reads off, word for word the jagged cursive etched into the scroll, old ink faded in the background, and especially enunciates those, annoying, greedy numbers off the tip of her tongue. “10,000 units of ‘aqua-cola’, two months supply of food rations and produce” she swallows at the last request with a dry mouth “and lastly 700 units of mothers milk”. 

Adina sits back in her chair and scoffs loudly, crossing her arms. 

Capable looks at her scrawled out notes on already used paper, “In the five days it takes to make a unit of milk, four for production and one for harvest, with all twenty eight of our milking mothers, bless their hearts, we would have our milk debt cleared at 125 days, we have 150. By that time, looking at my numbers, the food ration and water debt will not be a problem.”

Dag scowls at the thought of working overtime in the fields, and pickling in the kitchen. 

The milking mother representative sits upright, “do you have any idea how hard it is to create milk? That’s 125 straight days of being used, as a commodity. You need calories, medicine, herbs upon herbs. It’s painful, hard on the body.” 

Capable looks down, she hates this, especially hates pinning this onto the milking mothers, probably the hardest working women in the citadel now. “I know, I have not felt what your lives are like, but I know that these demands are inhumane to you and the rest of the mothers, but this is how it is”. She hates that ‘this is how it is’. She’s never, ever wanted to tell anyone that. She’s wanted to change ‘the way things are’, and she feels like she’s failing. Adina’s mouth hangs open a little in disbelief; in the amount of unwillingness to hear her, in the near lack of compassion.

A gardner speaks up “Can’t we put together a treaty? like we had done the other times? That’s always worked out”

“Gastown won’t accept that this time. The document read ‘under no circumstance will any negotiation or treaty be accepted.’ Seems as if they're a bit fed up with my countless attempts to do just that in the past.” 

The crowd grows a bit more restless but Capable raises her voice over them, so they hush. Over the next three hours She explains how work will change over the next 150 days, how the delegates should confront their people, and makes any necessary changes. Furiosa listens intently and Max has almost fallen asleep four times, his head nodding off. 

“Alright, that’s it everyone, thank you for attending” Capable taps her papers with a smile and mutters under her breath “meeting bloody adjourned”.

Stiff joints crack and voices grumble when people file out of the room. Furiosa nods a little solemnly at Ace and nudges Max, “Let’s go”. 

Furiosa feels numb. She can’t think about this right now, can't think about the milkers, what they'll have to do, if they’ll resent her for what she did, like they resented Joe. She needs something else. Something to do. She looks to Max, still waking up. 

“Youre here to help right?” 

“ ‘course” he says to her. 

“Good, we’ll go down to the garage to work on inventory”

\----

They thread through dark tunnels, straying away from the crowd until they enter the back room of the garage. Dim electric light reflects over nuts and bolts. The room is impeccably organized, each little shelf and box is in its proper place, labeled with its contents, what size, and its level of availability and rarity. A scarred up and lumpy war boy hunches over a workbench. He has broad shoulders, clouted ears and goggles with magnifying glasses for lenses. 

That dog, Max immediately recognizes, scraps, is perched up on the war boys shoulder. 

“Joseph” Furiosa greets him. 

“Right here” he grizzles back. “We got two dozen crates of salvage bits, larger stuffs already been sorted” 

Furiosa hums and scans the crates, stuffed with disorganized pieces of what might be junk, might not. She thumbs her lip and settles down a heavy box, clinking with metal. 

“It's pretty straightforward, you sort and everything has a place, it's tedious but needs to be done, no one else will do it” she sighs sitting down. “You sort, I'll file things away” 

Max hums and crouches down, groaning over his pained knee. 

They work for maybe five minutes and she is tapping her heel relentlessly, keeps cracking her knuckles and biting her lip over and over. 

“You alright?” He finally asks. 

She runs her hand over her head and thumbs her lip again. “I think I should go see Capable” she admits. “You okay here?” 

“Mm.. Yeah, sure” he tosses bolts into one pile and washers into another. 

She gets up, her knees cracking, and she dusts off her hands. 

“Joseph?” She calls and he grunts back, “take care of Max for me?” 

“Sure thing boss” he says still hunched. 

Max keeps himself occupied and watches her leave the room, before returning to his work. 

\-----

Her mind is manic, and she's on the borderline of an anxiety attack. She hates being this nervous, doesn't even know why, she's gone through worse before, why can't she handle this. Her hands are near shaking and the tunnels leading to Capable’s office get smaller and tighter. She knows she's fucked up, that the milking mothers and everyone else will hate her for the next thousand days probably, so she has to deal with this, because for the past some 700 days, not talking, especially to Capable has not helped anyones case. 

Walking into The stuffy office, Furiosa’s heart jumps into her throat, but she has to be stronger than that so she pushes it back down. 

Capable's spine looks like it aches from how many hours shes spent curled over her desk. 

“Busy?” Furiosa asks pulling up a chair to sit on it backwards, resting her elbows on the rusted frame. 

“Yeah” Capable sighs back. 

Furiosa looks at Capable’s perfect writing. She can decode the letters and some of the numbers, but she has no idea what the symbols in between numbers are, or why everything is placed where it is. 

“Figured out anything that could help?” She tries, and fuck shes trying hard to talk casually. 

Capable lifts her hands from her desk and drops her crow feather quill, shakes her head slowly, and grinds her jaw. 

“Furiosa, you’ve really, really fucked us over” She growls through her teeth. There it goes. Furiosa’s heart wells up and her stomach turns sour. Capable turns to her, “Too many people have worked overtime already, blisters on the gardener's hands or bruises on the milkers breasts, there are empty stomachs and dying babies, we don't have the resources for debt”. If anyone knows the detail of pain and gore through the citadel, it's Capable, right down to the thousandth decimal place. “Ever since we got back to the Citadel, everyone and their war party has wanted a share of this shining fucking oasis, most chunks of “debt” were unavoidable, but there were some that were” she looks at Furiosa with hard, burning eyes, all she can do is listen, and resist the urge to shout back. “This debt ordeal would have been particularly avoidable if you hadn't gone out and acted on a impulsive violent whim, right now the Milking mothers wouldn't be sobbing over the anticipation of the next daunting 125 days, where I have to force them to be used like a thing, like fucking livestock. I've tried to do something before but it won't work this time, we can't do anything”

Furiosa opens her mouth to speak, but Capable stands up and kicks her chair back, towering over Furiosa. “You've got to realize that now your actions affect people.” she stares down at her “You're too brutal Furiosa, almost something near Joe” she spits. 

Furiosa snaps upright and braces herself towards Capable, knocking foreheads. “I am nothing like Joe, you and I both Know who Joe was and I am not that. I am who I am because I fought back, I lived, and I was brought up like this because it’s what was handed to me” her hot breath tears at her throat and her mind is cracking like lightning. “No matter how much you want to, you can't fix this place, this entire earth has gone sour”

Capable is entirely unaffected and somehow still seems taller than Furiosa. “I'm not one of your bloody war boys. You can't just glare at me and expect me to cower. I’m not Cheedo, not Ace, not Angharad, and I’m not fucking Max, I am Capable and I am trying my best to fix whats broken, and you're not helping by planting antiseed whenever you get the chance” 

Capable whips her body away and storms out into the tunnels, her nose itching with future tears and her hands hot, leaving Furiosa angry, alone, and a bit broken.


	7. Chapter 7

Max feels incredibly awkward, just him and the war boy, but he keeps himself occupied with the work and hopes that he doesn't screw something up. He can't help himself but to keep looking at the stumpy dog underneath the war boys chair, eyes bulging and its sound of desperate panting filling the room. It only breaks to breath when it moves its tongue around, and then let's it hang again. It's only been about 15 minutes (he's been counting) and Max is bored out of his mind. So, he decides that if he's going to be here for the time being, he might as well make allies. This war boy doesn't seem as warlike as any of the others, more level. He rests his elbow on his knee and licks his cracked lips before speaking. 

“Why scraps?” He asks. 

The war boy grunts in question back “eh?” 

“Your dog, why's he called scraps?” 

“Ah, scraps” he coughs in the back of his throat. He doesn't look at Max, only continues his work, “long while ago, a pack of young war boys found em’ hobbling through the barracks, and anything that fat would have been good for dinner, so they cornered him. The mutt looked so happy and giddy in the face of death that I couldn't let him be food. I tried to convince em’, told them dog tastes awful, and eventually one war boy gave in, said ‘he's barely enough for scraps’”. He reaches under his chair and scratches the tops of the dog’s head. 

Max moves on, “what about you?” 

“What about me?” He says back.

“Joseph, that's an old world name” 

Joseph stops his work and turns his head a bit but shakes it off 

“So is Max” 

Max moves his tongue around in his mouth and grunts, fair point. 

“My name...” The war boy grunts “Joseph, the boy with a coat of many colors, a shepherd, dream teller, or maybe the other one, an old world immortan, always wore a big suit” he licked his index finger and turned a page, “or Joe himself, the one who rose from the shadows”. He stops and turns around, lifting lenses from his goggles to see Max better, and Max looks back at him, struggling with eye contact. “It's because of that Joe that no one says my name, always thought I was lying, Furiosa's the only one who calls me by my name out loud” 

“You talk like you're a history man” Max casts his eyes downwards to sort bits of nails, and tosses a busted battery into the “busted battery” pile. Joseph turns back around. 

“I'm not a history man, boy, just from the old world” 

Max sits still and waits for a further explanation rather than asking for one, he doesn't want to seem like he's digging for anything. 

“Was about 19 when the world fell, just getting into college for economics, but that changed when computers started crashing’ and no one had any care for numbers anymore. So now I do inventory, been stuck in this room for years, but it pays well in clean water, and the citadel has the most well kept inventory in numbers, though Gastown won’t admit it.”

The words “college” and “computer” are lost to Max, but he nods like he understands anyways. He knew what economics means, equated it with Bartertown, but if he tried to define it outloud he wouldn't be able to.

Even under new rule, the war boys have never been fully able to let go of their religion. Immortan was there less, but sometimes bubbled up like angry bile in the back of their throats, or coursing through their veins like chrome; but they lowered their head and forgot about it. They still have their V8’s, it's a culture, something that can't be taken away. Still though, they all seem a bit lost, most of them started the ritual of white paint and black grease just to escape the wretched. This war boy, toO small and stocky to fight in war (no where near intimidating enough either) had something different about his stature and his mind. Max, for now, can respect that to a certain extent. He’s never, never had any “luck” or charisma with another human, but he could stand this one, and kept trying to convince himself it wasn't just for the dog. 

“well boy” Joseph starts, “I've had my share, who are you then” 

Max doesn't give that question any thought, he doesn't want it to have any, can't think too hard about that. 

“mm.. met Furiosa when she took the girls, helped her when she took the immortan” 

Joseph burns his charcoal stub a bit more, “So you're the one stories float on about. A blood bag on the fury road” 

“hm, yeah. That’s me” Max hums back. “Should probably, er, go check up on her” 

“I get it” Joseph waves his hand, “counting salvage ain't’ much fun, do what you will’ 

Max, eager, and on edge from counting too many bits of scrap, doesn't realize it, but he really needs to be around Furiosa right now. He doesn't fit in with the rest of this place, a bullet that doesn't match with any gun, but he feels right next to her. 

So he climbs back, following his notes of different distinguished lamps or pipes, before he gets to the row of imperator quarters, Doesn't know if she’ll be there but it’s a good guess. He cracks open her heavy door, bits of scrap metal riveted together. A fraction of a second too late, he realizes he should have knocked because when he’s in earshot of her, she's panting. 

She lifts herself from the floor and is slick with sweat, almost dripping off the tip of her nose. All this while She's been cranking out push ups, crunches, as many exercises as four walls will allow her. Her palms are red and grey with dust, and the fuzz on her head clings together a bit from the sweat. Max feels like he’s intruded on her and immediately regrets coming back to her room. She licks her lips of salt and gives a half-assed explanation between breaths 

“Sorry, just had to get straight back here” 

Max fidgets with his jacket and doesn't say anything, just blinks at her with a bit of concern and a stitched brow. He looks to her thigh and notices a small patch of dark red seeping into the cloth where he stitched her up earlier. Max locks his eyes on it and she checks as well, swallowing in annoyance, shucking off the top of her pants, and resting on the edge of the bed. One stitch has broke and a steady drop of blood streams thickly down her thigh. Instinctively, Max reaches into her trunk (glancing at her first as if to ask permission) and takes the flask. 

“This is booze right?” he checks. She nods back and feels a bit sheepish for having something so trivial in her possession. He wets a corner of cloth and presses it to the broken skin, letting the blood creep into the threadbare towel. 

She doesn't ask for this. She hasn't asked for anything he's done, but she lets it happen. Max isn't an indulgence and he isn't at any point of sentiment to her. Sentiment had its time long ago, but things like that have crumbled for her like sandstone. 

When it's just max, her lungs ache a little less and she can slow down. She doesn't count minutes obsessively and her heart sets at a steady pace. Being around Max doesn't make her feel normal, normal has never applied, but he just slows things down for a moment. 

Furiosa has never had, or given thought to deconstructing any type of emotion, her life has been built around not having any. Over the last hundreds of days, she’s been able to have more. She's had too much pain, and has learned to take the good moments and not question them, in fear of poisoning the feeling. 

So she sits, and does not count her pulse this time, and lets him spread a bit of honey over her cut. 

He licks the honey off the edge of his thumb, and the copper taste of her blood is faint in the sticky sweet honey that lingers on his tongue. 

Furiosa cleans herself up with the rag, and tries her best not to look to winded. 

“Food?” she mentions more than asks. 

Max nods quickly, remembering the pleasure of a hot citadel meal ration. 

By the time Furiosa has gotten through a coughing fit and they reach the mess hall, it’s already filled. Filing and waiting in line for ground grains, beans, and pickled vegetables seems like it takes forever, and everyone on either side of them seems put off by their tall comfortable presence together, but no one asks questions. 

Max tucks into his food messily, and Furiosa takes careful, prudent bites until her bowl is uniformly clean. Cheedo joins them and eats heartily after a long day's work. 

“How’s she doing?” Furiosa probes. 

“Good,” she says between bites, “recovering very well, no rot or smell so it’s not infected, I’m mostly worried if she’ll die of boredom, don’t think she’s ever been anything like being bedridden. Give her a day or two and she can walk on crutches” 

“Sorry” Max mentions. 

Cheedo looks back at him, “For what?” 

“The bandage, should have made sure first” 

“Ah, that's alright, you both were trying to do what was best.” she smiles “It’s not like either of you shot her” 

Furiosa takes another bite and stays quiet, seemingly unaffected. 

Once they finish their meal, (and max refrains from asking for seconds), they stack dirty dishes and Furiosa takes a different corner from where they would usually go back up to her room. Dusk light peeks through holes in the walls and the air trailing through feels warm and dry, but not blistering. Max can catch peeks of sunset through the hand sized windows for ventilation. 

She takes the turn towards the garage and Max asks what’s going on this time. 

“I've got something to show you” she tells him as she ducks under a pipe.

Last time she said something like that she ended up with a bleeding nose and lip, so much for Furiosa’s “surprises”.

They reach a large metal door tucked away in the garage. Rails on the top let the door slide from side to side. She braces her hands, metal and flesh on the door, digging her heels to stone for leverage, but she shoots him a look before opening it. 

“Ready?”

He doesn't know, could be anything behind that door. If there's anything that puts Max off, its uncertainty; yet his whole life he's spent his time wandering into unmarked caves and settlements of different people. So, in this case, he nods to her. 

She shifts her weight against the door and the iron wheels roll in the rail, swinging the door to the side. 

The room is steep with pitch black, but then she clicks on an industrial light, glowing with orange. 

She runs her fingertips over metal, and his mind lights up like ignition 

It’s his interceptor.


	8. Chapter 8

Max is fucking giddy. 

His lips crack from smiling and so he has to lick them. He rubs his hands over the bottom half of his face and through his hair. He dances around his car, shuffling and ducking to check the undercarriage, trailing his fingers along the wheels, caressing the cab and the hood, metal beaten out and rusted, nearly to its original distinctive shape. His eyes twinkle a little as he ducks his head inside, and notes the added passenger seat, replacing that flimsy plastic thing. 

Furiosa can't help from smiling either, and bites her bottom lip to hold it down. She’s never seen anyone this happy in a long time, and never expected max, especially Max, to be so incredibly delighted. 

“We caught her in the first salvage run” she puts her hands in her pockets cooly, “I immediately took her for myself and I've been fixing her up ever since, no one else has touched it” 

Max’s eyes are still flickering and his hands still run over the interceptor, like he's appreciating it, or rather making sure its real. He should be angry, he should have even just a bit of a grudge that she took the one thing that was his. He got himself into a lot of shit over nothing with the rock riders, and had to tow around a mule of a car that barely broke 75 mph. But he can't be angry, it just doesn't happen, he has to appreciate it. There were many times where he thought the interceptor was forever lost, probably tagged off by mangy scavengers, when really, it had been there all along; he just had to come back to her. 

She’s eager to show him more. She’s been working on it nearly daily ever since it was towed back. Only her, trading water for parts and locking herself in that garage room whenever she had a spare minute. At first glance people would think that she was fixing his interceptor because she missed him, or maybe out of pity, even a form of tribute. To many, especially the vuvalini, it seemed a bit pathetic. Fixing a car without haste? No war modifications? What was the point? 

But she took no shame, told people “I just want to make it run again”, and everyone brushed it off. 

Though it was a little more than just making it run, she took her time. She made sure everything melded together perfectly and nothing was out of place. Every act was an act out of extreme care and a bit of artistry, even if she didn't realize it. 

“Look” she pops the hood. 

That prized v8 engine stands robust and proud like a trophy, and Max doesn't dare touch anything because he know’s it's already perfect. 

“She purrs” Furiosa says gently and scans her work a little proudly. “Kill switches are the same as the first war rig” she looks at him, “go on, try it” 

Immediately Max hops into the cracked imitation leather driver's seat and flips the sequence he could never forget. 

His interceptor has no obstructions when it wakes, the engine hums and purrs like she said it would, and Furiosa has to smile in spite of herself because she's never heard an engine so well balanced and flawless. 

He palmes around the steering wheel and checks the mirrors. The rear view mirror has two sprigs of a dried wildflower that he couldn't name if he tried (but she could) hanging upside down. He feels the clutche’s give and pads the soles of his feet from pedal to pedal, familiarizing himself. Furiosa stands above him and rests her metal arm on the top of the cab, looking almost a bit suave. He looks up, eyes still twinkling a bit and asks her “should we take her out for a run?” 

Its nearly dark, they’ll have to lower lifts and nearly no one ever goes out for no reason, but it takes her less than a split second to nod slightly and motion for him to get out. 

He puts it in neutral and unlocks the brake before they push her along and silently roll her out onto a lift, like war boys eager for a mischievous night drive.   
She nudges a lift worker and promises him extra water when they get back, so he happily obliges. There's no need for elevator rats in order to go down, especially just one car, so the lift’s chains and weights creak and churn as they are lowered. 

Max feels solid, with a gear stick in his hand and a sight of the pink horizon line. There's no voices right now, there's no panic and no anxiety. Right now he feels like he’s where he needs to be. 

Pumping the gas, the engine has no pauses or lurches, it just shifts seamlessly and hums like the great machine she built it to be. 

Max has his interceptor, a full tank of gasoline, and Furiosa at his side. Nothing could be more perfect. 

When he clears two hundred yards of the Citadel walls he guns it, and the interceptor tears up the ground beneath him. He’s heading straight for the powder lakes, where no settlements go for the night and it’s desolate. He’s already nearing 95 mph and burning plenty of guzzoline but doesn't hesitate to do so. The sky is tainted with orange and pink swirling light and the sun hangs hot and heavy on the horizon. The light illuminates Furiosa’s profile and she brings her knee up to rest her elbow. When he turns his head, Max could swear that he can see her smiling bigger than ever, but she hides it by biting the edge of her thumb. 

They breach the rocky sandstone pass to the powder lakes and a flat bed of cracked earth is stretched out before them. 

Max splits the land in two with a tall rooster tail of dust up into the air, just to see how fast she’s built it. Granted, the interceptor is incredibly accelerated and the movement pushes both of them back against the seats. He brings his hand up over hand to shift the wheel, testing out the range of motion in the axels. Max drives efficiently, but he drives like a car is something human that he can relate to, like an extension of himself that relieves that constant feeling to run away. He drives like he's racing, not for something but because he can, and he knows he's going to win. No movement is wasted as they tear up the long dry mud, probing every detail of his interceptor and its reactions. It's not worn through or as familiar as before, but it runs beautifully.

Furiosa is bouncing her heel again and he slows to a stop, engine still humming. He chews his bottom lip for a moment. 

“You want to drive?”

She holds eye contact with him for maybe two seconds, still bouncing her heel and all it takes is: 

“Yes”

They round the car to switch seats and Furiosa already knows every dial, switch, and pedal by muscle memory. Max braces himself; though he shouldn't be worried, he is. This is his interceptor, and even though she’s built it and knows it inside out, trusting it in someone else's hands while driving puts him a little on edge. 

Furiosa is trying not to show how excited she is. She’s worked so hard nursing this beast back to a roaring life, and it's been too long since she's driven anything for pleasure. 

The sky has taken minutes to become almost completely dark, and it’s bordering between the murky blue night and the orange sunset. 

She knows this machine down to every bolt and fuse wire, so when she presses the gas and pulls the stop, Max can't believe how quick she can get the interceptor up to the top gear without making it stall. The sound of the engine cracks through their ears and the pistons pump the prime grade guzzoline she’s been saving for the first test run. This car is beautiful and she loves it, lightweight enough to float, but equipt with the perfect aerodynamics to make the wheels stick to the ground. She tears up the unblemished earth and pulls the stop open again, pulling the gear stick down to reverse and palming the wheel to a hard right. The interceptor whips backwards, shifting on it’s wheels and then seamlessly driving back, Furiosa with her arm around the passenger seat and checking its backwards range of motion. Max is clinging to the passenger door and is nestled tightly into his seat, pressing his lips together over the harsh momentum. She shifts back to first and whips the vehicle back once more, to tear straight forward. This thing drives like a dream, and it’s giving her a high of adrenaline. She makes a couple more tight turns and the interceptor's wheels float sideways effortlessly and succumbs to her every demand. She turns a knob for nitrous (something she couldn't resist adding) and flames burst out the sides of the interceptor, making the engine hot, but rewards Furiosa with that top speed she was aiming for. At 125mph with this machine under her palms she howls out, loud into the night and then, laughs, but the sounds are barely heard over the rip of the engine. 

Max looks over to her and right now she looks like a storm, beautiful and overwhelming. The air vent sucks in and the interceptor is like a living thing, breathing and charging forward like a feral beast. 

the engine gauge is going a little too hot, so she backs off the nitrous and shifts down to finally stop by some coverage of tall rocks, and flips switches to let it rest. Everything is quiet except for the clicking of fans through the engine and both their ragged breathing from a well earned adrenaline rush. 

“She runs” Max breaks silence. 

“She’s gorgeous” She says back running her hand over her head. She says it, and those two words sound a bit like poetry, she’s proud and she's actually happy. She cracks her knuckles (just recovering from being clenched tight) and breathes out, “It’s uh, been a while since I’ve taken anything out just to drive”

“Its nice” he says.

“Yeah” she sighs through her nose and then shifts to bring her knee up to rest her chin on. “Well, uh, we can't go back. Elevator rats don't work nights and we need them to get back up.” 

It was something that she knew all along, that they couldn't be lifted back, but she left anyways. She just had to leave. 

“That’s alright, we’ll stay here” he says, and he genuinely does sound really comfortable with it. This car used to be his home and he’s more than happy to spend another night in it. The sun has fully set and the entire set of stars come out, without any light pollution. 

Furiosa roll’s up the windows (of which don't fit perfectly, but it’s all she could find that wasn't shattered, skipped two meals and a canteen of water to trade for them), and unbuckles the prosthetic to take it off. She pulls her jacket that she’s been keeping behind the driver's seat and unfolds it. The brown leather on the arms are well worn, and the left cuff has been cut off and resewn so she can fit her metal arm through. It was a gift from her crew long ago, from a time when they went to bartertown. It’s kept her warm on the coldest nights, lined with a type of fur the vuvalini later told her was called “sheepskin”. Whenever she slides it over her shoulders and she pops up the collar, she can't help but wonder what the hell they traded to come across something this valuable. 

She settles back in the seat and looks perfectly comfortable and nestled, rubbing at her temples. Suddenly, she hums like she’s remembered something and reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a small rusted flask, unscrews the cap, and tilts her head back for a sip. Her tongue curdles a little from the taste but it spreads a warmth through her throat and her stomach. Her arm reaches out to Max and she offers him the flask. 

“It’ll keep you warm” 

He takes a moment before he takes the flask in hand and sniffs.

“Potato liquor” she explains. 

Max turns his head back as well and feels the poison taste spread through his mouth and swallows. The alcohol blooms through his body and makes his mouth feel hot. He gives the flask back and curls himself up tightly. 

“Thanks” he mumbles, and she hums back in reply, a little sleepily. 

Neither of them fall asleep within the first hour. The old seat in the interceptor used to tilt back but these ones don't, and the car is in that odd state of humid and frigid, where he can feel his nose going red and cold but the windows are all fogged up with breath. Max grunts and mumbles something like “ s’ too cold” 

He climbs into the back space of the interceptor behind the from seats where he used to keep all his salvage material, but now it's barren and empty. The floor is just big enough for the length of his body to stretch out in. Furiosa’s eyes peek over the collar of her jacket and she watches his struggle to get past the seats and into the back. Once he's in and laying himself down, she doesn't ask, doesn't speak, just quietly crawls in after him. 

The space fits both of them neatly, packed in together. They don't have blankets but they Have a canvas tarp, and that work’s just as well. 

They've been sleeping in the same bed for the nights he’s been at the citadel, but it's always been back to back, with cautious space between them. Its either way too late at night or way too early in the morning and one will punch the others nose waking up from a nightmare, but neither of them mind. 

Now they face each other and the small space obliges them to have their bodies pressed together and they share each other's warmth. Max can feel her hot breath on his chin and shudders a bit from it. She reaches to curl into her own jacket, but grabs his by accident and curls towards him instead. Somehow in the tight space Max has brought up his arm and she rests her cold head on it. Max fully takes this moment in, with how he can see her eyes close beneath blue light, and how the liquor feels hot in his gut. She nestles more, until her head is burrowed and his lips press onto her scalp. Furiosa has found the warmest spot in the car, and it's right underneath his chin, in the crook of his neck. 

“Better?” she asks with eyes closed. 

“mmm.. better” he hums back, and matches his chin to the top of their head. 

For the first time in a very, very long while, they both sleep without nightmares.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay! I'm sorta struggling getting back on track w/ writing but i'll try to stay on top of it.

Furiosa wakes up first (again) and finds herself in the warm sticky mess of sleeping closely to another person. beneath her jacket is humid but her ears and her nose are pinched with cold, turning rosy. Looking down, Max is now tucked underneath her chin, snoring a little. her mouth feels dry and her head aches from the long exposure of cold. 

She has always had pangs of pain; headache, split lip, healing cut, phantom limb, but right now those don't matter and she can see dust swirling over Max’s head in early morning light. She shifts her head and notices that there actually isn't much light at all, it’s still a bit blue out. 

Eventually she climbs out of the perfect mold of sleeping with max, and her joints reluctantly adapt to movement. He doesn't stir at all, just nestles back into his blanket. Crawling through the cab, she opens the door and wraps herself tightly in her still warm jacket. Her breath sprawls out before her in a thick smog and she scrubs her numb nose with the back of her hand. Furiosa takes in all the air her lungs can stand, and then exhales, closing her eyes. 

For all it’s worth, the wasteland can be beautiful. A wheel crafted is beautiful, a woven blanket, tattoos or scars, all beautiful. In this case, it’s a sunrise, and for a moment she has to take it in. If there's anything the vuvalini taught her, it’s that everything will be bad if you always see bad; sometimes you have to breathe.

So she climbs up into the hood and rubs at the kink in her neck, and then at her temples. She scrubs the sleep out of her eyes scans the powder lakes, the walls marked with steady rings that once measured water, until the lines met the dusty ground. 

She feels the car shift with weight moving around in the back, and eventually Max struggles out of the car, scratching at his ear. He hums and grunts in the back of his throat, like he's trying to kickstart his voice. 

“You always get up this early?” he asks, blowing on his hands to keep them warm. 

Furiosa nestles into the collar of her jacket, “Mmhm”

Max continues to try to keep warm and leans against the interceptor, and scans the horizon, failing to look at it like she does. “Spent a lot of time out here, er, before I was taken for blood” 

“I know” she coughs out and then presses her lips together. He gives her a look in question. “Your back. Tattoos” 

Max forgets about the scabbed over ink on his skin a lot, and it unsettles him when he remembers. She caught sight of the label one night, when they were washing up back to back, and she looked over her shoulder. 

“We should get back before everyone wakes up” she mumbles, kicking herself off the hood of the interceptor. She hops in the passenger seat and settles, as Max rounds the car to flip kill switches and let the machine wake up a bit before he speeds off. He doesn't drive fast enough for the engine to crack in their ears, just enough to steadily get back to the citadel. Furiosa blows puffs of air into her fist in hopes of warming her numb fingers, and stretches them out in hopes of minimal repercussions for a juvenile joyride.  
They bring the Interceptor back to the garage, and though it’s early morning several war boys have already been busy in morning shifts in their garage. They give sideyed looks to the two, rolling back a beautiful beast of a car no one has seen before, though everyone's too tired to start shit over anything. Furiosa covers the cab with the canvas tarp and tosses her jacket into the front seat. 

“You can go get breakfast, I have to go pick up water rations” 

Max hums back and slips out of the garage to the mess hall. Not many people have been up yet, just the early morning gardener's, and a couple rare early morning war boys. As soon as he grabs some grain mash (having to explain that he was with Furiosa in order to receive anything) he immediately scuttled up to her room and hoarded away in the quiet space. 

Furiosa stands three people in line for water rations, given out every third day. After the agonizing five minutes standing around doing nothing, she flashes her water token at the rationer, embossed with a number “1”, the first of hundreds of tokens.

It’s difficult getting used to someone else living in her quarters, and so when she hauls in the two jugs of water, she looks up to see max hurriedly putting his shirt back on, changing out of the old one and back into the gray one she had offered him days ago. 

She tinkered with her prosthetic that had only been half working since gastown and shook herself out of feeling a little sleepy still. 

“You’re here to work right?” she asked Max. 

He looks up from his breakfast and scratches over his belly with those big fingers of his, “yeah” he replied, something like that. 

“Well, citadel law is you work, you get something in return above meals and water” 

Max’s brain flips like a switch, reflexively remembering his interceptor and his core purpose of getting more guzzoline into the tank and to keep her running. “Guzz” he said, “Guzzoline” 

A hundred different thoughts of Max running away and leaving without a trace again go through her head. Guzzoline, his first and almost too quick of a reply. Then she quickly remembers that she told him he could leave when he wanted, and that she never wanted to tether anyone to this place as she was, so she says “I’ll put your name and a good word into the rationing department for you” 

She tightens some final straps on the prosthetic and mumbles “Garage” between a bite of breakfast. 

\------  
Morning has been creeping up on Toast, she can't bear another day of not using her legs and watching dust swirl through long words that Capable reads to her. Behind her head she hears footsteps, jagged with one limping foot. A soldier about her age, but seemingly younger whispered “Hey, Knowing” 

She lifts herself up on the cot and rests with her elbows to see who the voice is coming from. The war boy, Cricket. holds a crutch in his chalky hand, and a second underneath the crook of his arm, and looks at her with wide glassy eyes. He holds the crutch out to her nervously, and licks his lips. 

“Thought you would hate being bedridden” 

Toast lit up and gasped, shifting to sit up, “oh, shine!” 

Cricket looks very pleased with himself and shakes his head “Always had two, but I can do with one” 

“Here, here, help me up” Toast motions, and the war boy tucks the crutch under her arm and steadily lifts her. Toast groans a bit when she accidentally puts weight on her right leg but shakes it off by biting down on her toothpick. 

“Cricket this is excellent!” she looks at him, and the war boy lights up too, happy as ever. “Come on, let's go get breakfast, food up here gets cold by the time they bring it up to us” 

The two hobble on their crutches out of the infirmary, and eventually toast puts her arm over Cricket for support, and in turn he has to put his around her. 

“So what was gastown like boss?” 

Toast’s well known chuckle echoed through tunnels and she starts off on her story until the sound became a quiet away from the infirmary. 

At a breakfast table That's soldiers gleam about her being back, telling her that they knew she’d fight em’ off, that those gastown boys will pay. She makes sure that there's a spot next to her for Cricket and he sits quietly next to her. 

All of the boys ask her about how she’s healing, if the wound smells or if there's skin that doesn't grow back right. 

“Fine” she says, “just happy to be back around my boys eh?” and she receives a rouse of approval. 

Toasts doesn't know what being half life is like, but she knows her privilege as a full life, and knows that she shouldn't boast about it. A shot like this could kill a war boy easy if he lost too much blood; except for Ace, he could take as many bolts and bullets that the entire bullet farm could offer and he’d probably live. 

The table simmers down after a bit and She shoos her soldiers off to their shifts, oh which they all begrudgingly peel themselves away for, including cricket. 

It’s been awhile since Toast has been able to walk with nothing to do, so she takes the opportunity, even with the numb throbbing pain in her leg. Toast is probably the only one that actually enjoys the convoluted tunnels and the high climbs to the gardens. She’s the one who scales the walls the fastest and knows every room or nook, and who lives in it. She first goes to the garage and tries for some form of communication with someone other than Capable. 

Max and Furiosa are aligning the Rig, of which is beautiful now that she can actually see it in clear light, and she hobbles over on a crutch. 

“Youre walking” Furiosa pulls down a bandana. 

“Good as ever” she says back. 

“Knew you’d be able to take a bullet or two” she mumbles looking through a toolbox, and Furiosa sounds a bit like Ace when he talks about her. 

“Heard about the demands from Gastown”. Furiosa says nothing back. “you gonna be alright?” 

“Me? yeah, ‘course, just trying to help however I can with workers”. Furiosa’s talking automatically the way that she does, concealing something. 

“You and capable haven't talked in awhile”, and again, Furiosa say’s nothing. “look, I’m sorry” Toast’s voice cracks a little bit. She’s practiced this apology over and over again in her head and she can feel that it’s already not coming out right. “I shouldn't have been scouting alone, i know I’ve screwed up” 

“Getting taken is never your fault” Furiosa finally looks up from her toolbox, “they should have known better. It’s my actions that have caused the debt” Furiosa moves a little closer to toast and the conversation finally feels natural when her eyes change and Furiosa asks “you healing well?” a little quietly. 

“Mm, yeah, tell your man thanks for trying to save my leg” 

Furiosa chuckles through her nose, “sure thing, Knowing” 

“Gonna go check on some soldiers” Toast says and hopes for a goodbye but gets a nod instead. Better than nothing. 

Passing through halls, Toast tries to pass silently by Capable's office, in hopes that she isn't fussed over any more, but she pauses when she heard sniffling. Toast peers behind the curtain and Capable has her hands through her red ropes of hair over her desk. She walks in, the crutch tapping the ground and Capable smears tears off her face. 

“Bad?” Toast tries. 

“No idea” Capable smears away snot “youre walking?”

Toast looks to her glassy eyes, “mm, no, not anymore. come on, sit” 

The two ease up against the back wall of the room and Capable bursts out into her tears again, over too much stress and the weight of tons of Citadel sandtone on her shoulders. Toast crouches with one leg, and rubs her hand over Capable’s knee. 

“Hey, girl”

Toast has never been good at comfort, and Capable has always been the one who needs it the most. 

 

“Everyone’s struggling because I can't fix this, people are going to lose food and health, and there's nothing I can do” Capable squeaks out. 

“You don't owe this place anything Capable, You’re doing the best you can and that's something”, the words come out of Toast’s mouth harsher and louder than she wants them to be. Her words don’t help Capable either, they just remind her of her compulsion for perfection and to please every need. “Everyone here has been through worse, this world isn't a kind world” Toast leans against the wall next to her. She churns up something kind to say to Capable that might make her feel better, when the shuffle of Furiosa’s heavy boots scuff the floor outside of the office. Toast gives her a look that might as well be a cry for help and she walks in the room. The cold oily smell of an engine wafts off of her even feet away from the two. Furiosa nods her head towards the door and Toast gets up with her crutch to let them have their space. 

Furiosa sits where toast did, with a careful space away from Capable, like she’s not sure if a touch could set her off. Capable still has hot steady tears stream down her cheeks but she’s otherwise completely silent. Furiosa starts off with the first harsh consonant of Capable’s name but she’s stopped. 

“Had fun last night then?” she says staring at her knees. Furiosa stays quiet and kneads at her neck. “Joyride” 

“This isn't your fault” Furiosa tries to talk like one of her mothers would have. “Youre doing everything you can for a place that never asked for your kindness. The next 150 days will be hard, but I know you've already survived a thousand”. She scratches her knee prys out words she doesn't know how to say. “I have to think better. No unnecessary killing” she repeats the mantra.

Capable doesnt say a thing back and Furiosa feels like she needs to fill up silence, “I shouldn't have gone out last night. That was indulgent, unreliable” 

The tears finally stop. 

“It’s too much” she cracks. 

Furiosa hums and takes her prosthetic off, which makes Capable feel considerably better. Everything in this world is too much, and the overwhelming responsibility of a city combined with the shelter from outside has made Capable’s bones ache and her head constantly throb. Furiosa know this feeling too well, different circumstance but it’s the same emotion. It’s the upwelling of your stomach and the loathing of light to each morning. Fighting against this world breaks too many people, it's exhausting. But it won't break Capable, she won't let that happen. 

“You’re strong” 

Those two gravelly words from Furiosa’s mouth sound almost sincere, and Capable has to believe it for herself.  
Furiosa remembered what Mary would say to her when she was a stubborn spitfire adolescent, and asks Capable the same thing, “What do you need?” 

“Sleep” Capable scrubs her eye. 

Furiosa hums understandably and picks up her prosthetic by the hydraulics, then offering the crook of her left arm to bring Capable up. She strolls the short walk to the sisters shared room and Capable looks at her before hiding away. 

“Rest helps” Furiosa nods, “Get as much as you need. You deserve it”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay i am so sorry about the delay but finals have got me stressed out, should be better over the break. (also stay tuned as there will probably be some smut spinoff fics coming up ;))))

It’s been 50 days 

50 days with Max at the Citadel. 

She’s been counting. 

They’ve been sleeping together ever since their joyride, side by side. One of those days Furiosa had the courage to tell Cheedo she could have the cot back, and Cheedo raised her eyebrows knowingly and didn't say a thing. As she did in her warboy days, Furiosa doesn't wear anything on her torso at night, unless it's too cold and she has to wear a sweater. Lately though she doesn't have to because the amount of heat that Max’s body gives off is more than generous. 

Max always folds his clothes (even his socks) neatly at the foot of her bed, in the most compact way possible, as if he doesn't want to take up space. 

They both are covered in bumps and tender bruises from each others nightmares, and that's hard, sleeping with someone who has as many nightmares as she does, like its doubling the amount of times she wakes. But they both fall asleep, one comforting the other, and they fall fast and quick, and deep. Definitely worth bumps and bruises. 

She teaches him how to plant seeds, properly. Her voice is gentle when she talks about plants and it’s something that he listens carefully to, every word. 

“These will be carrots” she says sifting seeds no bigger than a fly larva in her palm. She mixes sand into the seeds with her thumb. “The sand helps them root, and they only grow this time of year.” She bends down and digs a soil trench further with a metal finger, and then scatters the seeds in a line, “there can't be too many in one place otherwise they won't grow, can't be too far apart either, waste of space. Don't pack the soil down too hard, you’ve got to give them room to grow, and for the water to get in” 

Max grunts and works exactly how he’s taught, and she sees how careful and prudent his fingers are with the placing of each seed. Furiosa teaches him how to plant like when he was taught how to first honor an engine. 

Max is here to help in exchange for guzzoline, food, and shelter in return. That’s what she tells everyone.  
\----  
It’s been 50 days, and the Milking mothers are hurting. 

Food and water rations have been lessened bit by bit and people grumble about it, growing the half there resentment for the higher-ups. 

Capable checks on them every day, as well as Cheedo, sometimes spending hours in the milking room. 

50 days of bruised aching breasts, of the terrible sounds the pumps make, of hormone injections and hidden pain. 

Adina speaks up first. 

“Capable, we’re running dry. This is too much.” 

Capable doesnt speak, only listens. 

“You’re running us like a farm. Harvestin’ our bodies, like we’re not human” 

She knew that eventually one of the mothers would speak up, knew that this is too high of a demand, but she hasn't figured out how to fix it yet (of which agonizes her with self disappointment). Capable is hollow and has cranked out hypothetical solutions and hypothetical failures to go along with them.

“Can we water the milk down?” she purses her lips. 

Adina wipes her tan forehead and scoffs, “Joe tried that once. He really got it then. At our price of course. Any buyer can notice a difference.” 

They're talking between one another in a corner, stuffy with hot breath and a thick whimper of “I can’t” comes from across the room, to which they both turn. 

“I cant milk anymore” a mother says with shake in her voice. “It hurts, it hurts so much”. Steady hot tears flow from her dark eyes and over her round cheeks, and she whimpers, another milking mother holding her palm and trying to comfort her. “The injections make me sick, there's not a moment when i’m not in pain” 

Capable nearly shatters because that voice, scared and hurt sounds something like Angharad when she came back from joe stiff legged and with marks around her neck. 

Immediately she rushes over and pulls the heavily insulated plug from a the outlet on the wall, stopping her pump. 

“You won't” she looks at her eyes, “You won't milk anymore” 

The mother looks at her and her face is still a bit broken over pain, but the tears stop. 

“None of you will have to milk any more” She says louder over the room. It goes silent, except for the noises of pumps. “Rest” 

Adina’s mouth hangs open a bit and Capable walks over to her, “I’ll find another way” 

\----

Toast is well enough to be out of the ward, finally. Still, she keeps that crutch tucked under her arm, but she walks to make her usual rounds of chatting. Most of the time she feels immobile, it was so quick; the time between being the main general of the citadel and re-reading books in her sisters room. At dinner she won't stop bombarding war boys with questions of what the lookouts have seen, if gastown has been acting funny. All the boys chew their food with mouths open and say “haven't seen nothing boss, the wastelands a dead place”. She thumbs her lip and thinks, like that's too good to be true. 

50 days, and she’s in line at the mess hall. Max winds up next to her, Furiosa not around. 

He hasn't talked to her much at all, then again her barely talks to anyone. If he does, he peeks towards her and mumbles, asking if her leg is okay, she says “fine”, Max nods, then leaves. 

It's strange that he's here, and for so long too. He helps and Furiosa says it's for guzzoline but he must have so many guzz tokens banked at this point he could drive away for days. Max was such a big part of the citadel, and how he’s helped them take it. If it wasn't for him they never would have turned back, or raised in the lifts, but he keeps himself practically invisible. Once she asked the vuvalini, Ada, if Furiosa had told her anything but she shook her head and said with a wink “all that matters is that she's got an eye out for someone eh?” 

“You should sit at our table” she speaks to Max

He turns to her and cocks an eyebrow.

“Not with the boys, I mean, with us. You've been keeping yourself up in that room to much. Sit with us.” 

Max almost says no but he’s nodding already. 

The rusted table is lined with the two vuvalini, all the sisters at once, and him. He panics shortly until Furiosa saves him from it, sitting herself down on a plastic stool next to him. 

“Everyones here” she remarks with small talk

No one talks, just chews busily and it's not awkward, just a time and a place to be together. 

“Capable, girl” Polly, the older vuvalini says with a mouthful of beans, “Why don't you tell everyone what happened with the mothers today” 

“They are not milking anymore” she says without flinching. 

“They refuse?” says Furiosa and it comes out incredibly insensitively, not like she'd intended it 

“No. I told them they don't have to anymore. They're hurting too much.”

“”What are we gonna do about gastown?” Toast pipes in. 

“Don't know. my numbers don't work” 

“What do you mean?” Ada questions. 

“Numbers are stuck like grinding gears. one way it's not enough hours, or not enough people, not enough sunlight, not enough water” she chews and swallows a bite “I've tried everything.” 

“Mm, know someone..” Max mumbles with paste in his mouth. Everyone stops chewing to look at him and the attention is jarring. He swallows his food and double checks to make sure there's nothing in his mouth, over fear of slurring words like he will sometimes. “I know someone”

“Look, we can't just have some wasteland caravanner that pretends he's a scholar come in here” Capable dismisses him immediately. 

“No,” he says, and Furiosa is listening intently, “know someone, someone here.”

Furiosa stops eating and is surprised herself “Who do you know here?” she interrogates. 

“Joseph” 

“The fuck is is Joseph?” Toast barks. 

“The man who does all your inventory” Max glares back, a little condescendingly. “Good man. you should know him” 

“Shit, sorry...” Toast tucks into her meal again. 

“You know him well?” asks Furiosa because the thought of Max ever being acquainted with anyone doesn't sound right. 

“Mm, yeah” 

Furiosa nods and gets past the thought. It makes sense that if Max would know anyone, it would be him. If he wasn't with her, he was doing inventory with Joseph. Max himself was surprised that he doesn't mind being around someone else that isn't Furiosa. Doing inventory, Joseph never asks any questions and Max gets first pick from scrap for his interceptor. No to mention the dog. Without admitting it, Max loves that dog. 

“Well how does an inventory man help us against gastown?” Capable prys. 

“He knows economics” Max chews “He’s studied it. The man is old world” 

Bodies around the table suddenly lean in, interested. 

Capable prys again “He knows something we don't?” 

Max pauses because it sounds like a trick question. “Hmm, might give us a leg up on Gastown. Their demands say no chance at barter, but Gastown, Gastown’s all about barter.” 

“The man’s got a point” Polly eats. 

“Tea” Capable rings. “We’ll have tea tomorrow”


	11. Chapter 11

Capable adores tea, not to mention the cakes that comes with it. 

Tea isn't much of a rarity around the citadel, though not abundant. The cakes though, and the tiny dainty cups that Furiosa might break if she tried to hold one with her prosthetic are considered delicacies. The sisters room, always reeks of tea and boiled herbs.

The room much of a room as it is more of a lounge at this point. People are always in and out, knitting, chatting, napping and the sorts. The girls just end up sleeping there in the night. The place is… overdone. Books pile along the walls and are used as shelves, curtains hang from barred windows, rear electric lights can turn on with a switch. No one really sits down at a table, instead they are sprawled out on old carpets and pillows. Furiosa tries to stay in there as little as possible. The warm light and soft ground is almost too forgiving. 

Now Capable has set up her own little tea table and is glowing about it. Wheat cakes steam on a stone plate and she has artfully placed pillows at the edge of the table for sitting. Capable even breaks out a jar of honey next to the empty clay teapot. Tiny spoons are placed next to plates and Ada, who's been knitting while watching the girl puts together this meticulous little stage, speaks up. 

“Must be an important man. That seems like a lot of prep just for tea” 

Capable clicks her tongue and twists the top of the teapot about half of an inch, just so it fits right. “Tea is always important” 

Last night it took Max a full hour to convince Joseph to come to tea. He kept going on about how being around the four sisters wasn't the place for him, not high in the citadel walls. Excuse after excuse turned into vague grunts and eventually not replying. Though all it took was for Max to say “You can bring scraps if you like…” And the war boy finally turned his head and lifted his magnifying goggles as if to say “fine”. 

Joseph has been rubbing his palms together all morning. The chalk mixes with slick sweat on his hands, turning to a fine paste in the crevices of wrinkles. His tongue has gone to sandpaper and his throat is just a series of knots. Max himself has had to escort Joseph up the tunnels, said he wouldn't go alone in fear of someone telling him to get back to the infirmary. 

Scraps still is slumped on his shoulder and is definitely enjoying all the new smells of the higher up tunnels. His eyes seem to bulge more and that stumpy tail won't stop wagging, so much that his entire behind is moving as well. Joseph brings his arm up to steady the dog and compulsively scratches along his back and kneads his scruff. 

The wide door comes into sight and Joseph freezes feet away from it. Max turns back and cocks an eyebrow. 

“Come on mate, she doesn't bite” He tries.

Joseph swallows a lump in his throat and his stomach churns. The only sister he had met was the Knowing and he's sure she didn't remember him at all. Max waddles towards him to get a bit close and be a little more quiet. 

“Look, you've come this far, we can't tell her you don't want to help right?” 

Joseph grunts and nods his head before swallowing yet another lump and ever so nervously inches into the doorway with Max accompanying him. 

“Oh youre here!” Capable beams. 

Immediately, her red hair and her bright teeth makes Joseph want to run, but Capable is already walking towards him and grabbing his damp hand to shake it. 

“So glad you've come, we’ve got tea and cakes, I've been really looking forward to hear what you have to say about our numbers” 

The girl keeps looking into his eyes as if she can see past the layers of lenses over his goggles. 

“Gla- Happy to be,” Joseph stutters “Happy to help” 

“Who’s this?” She smiles at the dog and scratches under his neck, “He seems awful friendly for a beast” 

“Scraps” Joseph immediately replies and is proud of himself for not stuttering.

“What a cute boy, he is, delightful. Here, come on, sit. I've got herbs brewing” Capable leads him to the delicate table and even more fragile setting atop it. 

Joseph looks at the square pillow on the floor and frowns at the thought and having to try to sit down on it. 

“I’ll be out” mumbles max before he exchanges assuring nods with Joseph to let himself out of the door. 

He tries to sit and oh god it is embarrassing, especially in a place like this. Scraps nearly falls off his shoulder before he tries to settle his squat, stocky body down. For a moment he wishes desperately for a chair. Once he succedes in sitting, it feels incredibly awkward, like his weight could topple at any moment. He eyes those little spongy brown cakes and suddenly his mouth is watering. 

“Do you want to try one?” Capable asks, already sitting down with a straight spine. Joseph nods eagerly without words. “Go ahead, have as many as you like” 

He reaches out with his thick fingers and plucks a cake from its plate. The thing is still warm and about the size of half of his hand. 

Capable takes a spoon and dips it into the gelatinous honey. “Here, they taste shine like this” 

He holds the cake delicately between two fingers and she drizzles what looks like strands of gold onto the cake. 

Joseph takes a bite, too big of course and the honey turns into a mess all over his upper lip. But oh, these cakes taste like something from before the wars and they are pure luxurious nostalgia. 

He tries to make clean the mess on his mouth but the honey sticks to anything it touches and suddenly he is very glad he doesn't have any hair. 

Capable pours steaming tea into a pointlessly small cup in front of Joseph and he muffles the word “Delicious” through the sponge of his cake in his mouth. She smiles and picks up her cup, so he does the same. Swallowing the thick blob of cake in his mouth, he brings the cup to his lips and the long forgotten sensation of burning his mouth on boiling water hits him like a train. Out of shock, his fumbling hands drop the cup and Scraps jumps down from his shoulder with a yelp. The cacophony of the dog and the unpleasant shattering of a carefully made cup fills Joseph with dread, it even takes a moment for him to realize the scalding liquid has also spilled onto his chest.

“Oh! Are you alright!? Are you burnt?” Capable jumps up and pads a tablecloth on the spilled tea. 

“mm, sorry” He stutters again. “Didnt mean to, i'm sorry” 

“No no, no matter, I've done it myself” she smiles, and within seconds shes fixed everything up. “Really, it's okay. You alright Scraps?” 

The dog just looks up at her and pants, sitting comfortably in Joseph’s lap. 

Capable sits back across from him and blows on her tea a few seconds before taking the tiniest sip of her brew. 

“Here, have mine” she says and places the cup in front of him. He nods but doesn't dare to try to drink it. “So” she settles, “Let’s talk numbers”. Joseph nods again, more confidently to to relief of something familiar. “You know about our troubles with treaties before, but right now if we want to make it through the colder seasons, and if we don't want to kill our people with work, we really need a solution to the recent Gastown demands” Joseph grunts and lets her continue. “I’ve done all I can and we don't have the resources for their demands. Especially the Milking mothers. They don't have to milk anymore and we need a way for Gastown to be okay with that.” 

“They won't accept any negotiations?” He pipes in. 

“Nope. Not like the other times. If Corpus was here I would ask him, but unfortunately he's not.” 

Joseph grunts “Who do you think tought the man?” 

Capable’s eyes light up and she leans in, “Corpus? You taught Corpus?” 

“Somebody had to. Believe it or not he was an excellent pupil.” 

“Well youre prime, aren't you!” Capable beams once more. Joseph grunts again and scratches Scap’s head, slightly satisfied. “Can I entrust you with our numbers then?” Our information is practically a commodity, as you know. In return for you service you can have your own room, maybe get away from the barracks if you like.” 

Joseph nearly chokes at the offer.

“You will be working around us, full time probably” Capable says with a mouthful of cake.

Joseph remembers college dorms and a room scattered with papers. 

“Anything you need, you can let me know i'm here to help. I’ll even draft something out tonight.” He barks eagerly. 

“Tonight? Well that'd be shine, sure. I’ll introduce you to the mothers, and everyone else. I assume you've already met Max and Furiosa?”. Joseph just nods and hums back. 

They make rounds from room to room. Meeting everyone else Is more nerve wracking than meeting Capable herself. The mothers all surround him with beautiful bodies and glowing faces, scratching the dog's head and smiling at the newfound help. The attention catches him off guard but eventually the gentle women have him smiling and shy rather than shakingly nervous. 

Capable clutches his hand through tunnels and brings him to the mess hall at mid day meal. She taps Ace on the shoulder and he whips around. “Ace, I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet. He's working with us now” 

Comfortably and casually the two shake hands with a strong grip. “Good to see you old friend, glad to see youre moving up” Ace says hartley and pats joseph on the back. “The two of us have known eachother for quite some time” he explains and Capable feels a bit sheepish for not knowing. 

\----

His room is shine, with a real window to see out of. Joseph already has a handful of bits he believes to be important from his shop and places them on a workbench, careful not to make loud sounds. 

“I’ll start working, right now” He says eagerly, grabbing a charcoal stub from his trousers. 

“Don't overwork yourself” Capable sighs, “I know the feeling” 

“No, no, I can do this. You can trust me.”

Capable sets down a pile of hand bound books of available resources, names, blood types, weather analysis, mouths to feed, and the sorts. 

“All your numbers should be in here.” she dusts off her hands. 

Joseph runs his calloused fingers down the pages, and scratches his dog’s head. 

“Six days.” he says without looking at him. “Seven nights” 

Capable purses her lips and smiles. 

“I know I’ll be impressed”


	12. Chapter 12

Warm blood is blotted on her top lip and it’s an hour past midnight. 

It’s okay, just another bump or bruise from sleeping with Max. But it’s her nose, already fucked, and eugh it hurts. 

Then its her windpipe being crushed, and god she’s never known his hands were ever that strong. She rasps, and cracks her throat for air, closed off by Max’s tight palm and she can feel his thumb digging in behind her trachea with a sharp nail and bones of steel. 

His eyes are wide open and his pupils are tight. 

This is not a bruise or a bump. 

He is rolled on top of her and his legs, pinning her down, heavy, he’s gotten denser with muscle since staying here. His spine is animalistic and primal over top of her and fuck he needs to let go of her neck or else she might not breathe again. Max’s teeth are bared in a snarl, like through that muzzle, and saliva spats out with each violent breath and are his fists getting tighter? 

Her head is swimming and the sound of blood pumping through her ears is overwhelming, if anything intimidating, actually at this point it's flat out annoying. She’s stopped trying to grab breaths, keeping her trache still, but her feet, her legs squirm over lack of oxygen. If she could breathe she would scream “Enough”. 

Instead she yanks the back of his grown out hair, so hard that she could swear she has a fistful of it and his body jerks to the side for a sweet moment of his hands releasing their grip, and she lurches to get his body off of hers. Hands scuffle back over her nose and mouth but that turns out to be a bad decision on his part because her teeth bite down, hard. The feeling of his tendons and his bones beneath leathery skin could make her hide crawl, though it never has before at things like this. Max yelps and brings himself up to focus on the pain just long enough for Furiosa to swing him of the bed and onto the stone floor. His cranium makes a familiar “thunk” sound and he can feel his ears ringing a little bit over the impact. Not only did his own weight bring him down, but she has stayed on top of him, grinding him into dirt. By reflex, she whips out a blade tucked neatly under the edge of her bedframe and reluctantly brings it towards his adam's apple, But Max fucking grabs the blade and his body stops fighting

Furiosa can see how tight his tendons are over his knuckles, clutching the blade like a rope and there's no way that a knife that sharp did not cut his palm. 

His fist stays tight and his eyes are locked on hers, too much white showing. Breath still snarls through his canine teeth and he doesn't even look like Max at all. 

“Wake up” she says to his face and it sounds too sweet, pleading. 

Again. “Wake up” 

His breath is foul and his eyes look like they want to hurt something but he still smells like Max.

“Wake up!” she yells like a demand to a war boy, and whips the blade away from his palm, surely slicing a clean cut in his palm, and making him yelp again. 

Blood gushes out warm and steady from his palm still closed tight and now, now he’s awake. 

She can tell that he is when his brow is furrowed and his eyes look at her face, steady. 

‘Ah’s” escape through a cracked voice from the cut, long and deep from his persistent grip. He looks to his palm and prys his fingers open with white knuckles, letting a pocket of blood fall onto his forearm. Rising and falling, his chest heaves violently and Furiosa sits up overtop of him, knife in hand. She coughs, the kind of coughs like when her windpipe feels bent awkwardly. After settling with a hearty grunt in the back of her throat she wipes her top lip, smearing blood onto the back of her hand. Her shoulders move with her lungs as she battles towards breathing normally again. 

Max looks broken.

His hands are up in a sort of surrender and the thick slit in his palm is exposed, making Furiosa frown. She rips a piece of bandage from her overshirt that had been tossed on the ground and tries to hold his wrist still, but he jerks away and his eyes go scared. 

“Hold still” she says looking at the wound, and Max obeys. 

The room is absolutely quiet except for their shallow breathing and the dim sounds of Furiosa tying fabric. She’s trying to stop herself from running on a hair trigger, like she could accidently snap his neck if he came near her like that again. 

“I…” his voice cracks, “I am, so-” 

Furiosa cuts him off with a low hum and slowly, carefully brings her forehead to till they rest against each other, and Max doesn't finish his sentence.

“It’s alright. Happens.” she whispers and it sounds far from tenderness. 

Though, it doesn't happen. Night fever in war boys never made them like this. Her nightmares have never made her act out that badly, neither have his, not even Ace ever got like that. 

But Max just did, and she can feel the looming crimson color of a bruise splotching her neck, and the fact that her voice will rasp over the next day or two, and the thorough lie of an explanation she’ll have to tell people. 

Max’s temples sweat and it is taking every fiber of any form of sense he has left to stop his hands from shaking; from reaching out to her cheek, to make sure she’s real. 

She hums again and it’s nearly a growl. 

“Bed, come on” 

She tries, really does try to sound like she’s not pissed off but it isn't really working. It’s been night after night of curling around each other, and rocking one another back to sleep after nightmares. Her legs have been spotted with bruises and marks from him, and he has spots on his core from her sharp elbows. She’s even liked it. Like that time in his interceptor, where the air was cool and damp but being with Max made everything bearable. His body is so solid at night against hers, but sometimes when she can't sleep she would trace her fingers in circles along his shoulder and then she could feel how soft he really is. It’s his breath that she would focus on. Her eyes would be wide open until they became heavy, and her breathing would match his and they could sleep, really sleep. She even had a dream once while sleeping with him. She can't remember anything about it but she swears she had one. Furiosa hasn't dreamed since she was a girl. 

And she let her guard down. She let him be with her and didn't question it because it was so fucking natural. She fought with herself less because of him and she got soft a little too. 

Now she will have purple marks around her neck, like the ones she had in the vault and it scares her more than she knows she needs to be. 

They crawl up into bed and trying to get comfy seems impossible, so they both quickly settle for awkwardly tangled limbs. 

Again, it is deathly quiet. Furiosa is still wide awake and Max is making a great effort to keep his eyes shut because looking at her would probably break him again.

This is not all about her, she remembers. Her throat hurts but so does his palm and he's given so much to her, so she reaches out to touch his cheek and finds that around his eyes are wet. She rubs a thumb on his temple, like he would do to her and says “hey” 

Max hums and snuggles closer to her, brow still furrowed. “You here?” 

“Yes” 

“You.. a ghost?” he cracks.   
“No. Not a ghost. I’m here”


	13. Chapter 13

Waking up soft is a rare feeling. 

Specs of lint and fine sand dust glows golden, swirling and dancing in the light that peeks through Furiosa’s barred window. 

She can feel sleep in the corners of her eyes and she kneads the rough woven blankets through her palm. 

The mattress is less sunken, and she notices it’s only her weight on the springs. Her throat tightens enough to be just barely uncomfortable and she scans the room without moving. The light catches on her eyelashes like it does with the dust. 

But she shifts back, to the side closest to the wall, and she lays on her side with her arm tucked under her skull. She can feel the difference in the springs now, from where his body has slept for the past 57 nights. 

Her bed is too big. 

Her eyes stay open and blankly look towards the empty space, and her bones, her bones feel hollow. Her tongue sits in her mouth placid and stiff, and her teeth begin to ache a little, too dull to even notice. The knots in her throat match with the ones in her stomach. Her body, where each limb is resting, and her ribs that extend over every continuous breath feels numb, but she can still feel blood in her veins that her body relentlessly pumps, and everything is still. 

For the first time in eons Furiosa doesn't get out of bed the moment she wakes up; she just stays and kneads at the blankets slowly, compulsively. 

Max has left. 

Hours. It’s hours of her rigid hipbone sinking into the mattress and her hangnails torn raw. It’s a whole morning wasted. 

Ace knows something is up. First of all, he wasn't brought breakfast like he usually is, second, his boss is always up early hours, just like he had drilled into her when she was a pup, but not today. 

Maybe she’s runoff with that wastelander? Ever since he’s been back she’s been different. Less quiet.   
No. She couldn't have left. 

Ace snakes his way through the barracks and in the garage, asking “You seen the boss around?”. War boys and pups alike would shake their head and say she hadn't been down yet. with every negative answer he growls a little and his brows scowl out of worry. 

His boots scuff outside of her door and he taps it with the back of his hand, “Boss? you alright?”.

No answer. 

“Pup? You up yet?”

Again, no response so he shifts open the door, swinging it a little too intrusively and finds her in bed, curled towards the wall like she has been up all night with night fevers; exhausted and still. 

He stops stone still with one foot in the doorway and says “Boss?” a little softer. Furiosa answers in a low, acknowledging hum. “You didn't come down for the first meal” he tries to investigate. 

She curls a blanket over her shoulder, cocooning herself in. “Migraine” 

Ace hums back, knowing the throbbing pain of migraines; the reason he always sports his tinted goggles. “I’ll tell the boys you won't be around today then” 

She responds with “Thanks” and it's barely audible. He nods respectively and closes her door behind him.

Ace remembers the days he would have to drag her out a bunk, the early mornings with headaches or cramps in her stomach, the ones where she would beg to have just one day of rest because she couldn't handle being around feral crude warboys for another hour of her life. And he never gave her rest, not a day. He grinded a morning military routine into her, of waking up before dawn, jogging flights of stairs, war paint, and then breakfast. Being young, she had resented him for it, giving this sort of “special treatment” to her; but Ace knew, knew that she was healthy, full life, and she had the horsepower of a war rig. If Ace could not be imperator, that pup surely would. 

He growls to himself walking through the tunnels because he knows her, that she is able to get past anything, to put the soles of her feet on the floor before dawn and do what had to be done, no matter the circumstances. But why today? Out of all days for her to sleep in, why today?

Oh. It clicks in his mind.   
The wastelander.   
His fingers, stained with engine oil and speckled with the true color of his skin underneath clench at his sides and his teeth grit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (((I would like to imagine that Ace's nickname for Furiosa, aside from "boss" is pup. (due to his love for monosyllabic nicknames, of course) )))


	14. Chapter 14

Joseph’s fists clench around the edges of paper, stained with charcoal. He is nearly running through the tunnels but his joints start hurting so he’s basically limping. His excitement surpasses any point of pain he has and scraps, struggling to stay on Joseph’s heels, is eventually scooped up onto his shoulder. The war boy goes from room to room asking for Capable and eventually, as he should of guessed, he finds her in the Milking mothers room. He bursts through the doorway and spits out her name with the lack of breath from his lungs. He coughs awkwardly and steadies himself against the wall. Capable, genuinely concerned with the man rushes over. 

“Whats wrong? Are you okay? you look sick” her brows furrow. 

“No no, fine, i'm fine” He finally settles his throat. He smiles big and his yellow teeth show “I’ve done it.”

“What do you mean? You've fixed our numbers?” 

“Okay, okay” he plants himself steady on the ground and then looks at her through his goggles. “Booze.” 

there are seven seconds of awkward silence and Capable looks at him with disbelief, mouth agape. The mothers exchange looks to one another. 

“What?” she blurts out. 

“Booze. Like moonshine” he smiles and she still doesn't understand. 

“Joseph, no offense but we can't exactly just drink our problems away” she shakes her head. 

“No, wait, I mean distilling. Capable, we can make our own. We can use basically anything, cacti, potatoes, fruit skins, all the sorts. We have enough scrap to make a good distillery, and let's be honest, any alcohol you get out here tastes like mold or piss. Citadel has all the agriculture of the three cities, so we get first pick for what to make our booze from.” 

Capable scowls a bit, “Okay, but why would anyone buy hooch instead of mothers milk. The milk has healing that not even water has.” 

“Look, if there's a war boy that's just undergone an amputation, what’s he gonna grab first, milk or booze?” 

Capable chews the idea over in her mind and listens. 

Joseph continues, “We can offer gastown twice the units of mothers milk that they demanded in booze. These men are stupid Capable, they’ll take this offer like fresh bait. Look, I even have a proposal drafted up” He unravels a scroll. 

“Show me your numbers, and if they pass then we send off the proposal” 

Joseph smiles again, “wait, I just wanted to know if you had any knowledge about the citadel already having a distillery? Even if it's small, anything helps.” 

“Um, if we did it would be in joe's old room. anything that valuable he would have kept for himself.” Capables palms sweat at the thought of having to go in there again. They looted it in the first 50 days of taking the citadel and then left it sealed ever since. “Let me just, get some of the girls to come along first and then we’ll look into it” she purses her lips. Joseph nods back and smiles still. 

She snakes her way up to the infirmary, Joseph trailing behind, and finds Toast and Cheedo. Capable whispers for them to follow her to Joe's room and both of them look at her with disbelief. 

“Why?” Toast ask plain and simple with a toothpick in her mouth. 

Capable purses her lips again, “I just, need you two there for a bit. To help. It's Kind of hard to go there alone” she rubs at the back of her neck. 

Cheedo nods immediately, “we’ll come with you.” 

Toast tucks her crotch under her arm and some medical assistants take Cheedo’s place. They both are quiet and awkward around Joseph, not really entirely knowing what he is up to. Pipes along the stone walls creak and drip. Oncoming travelers tuck themselves away in doorways, like they don't want to get in the way of an armada. Fortunately, and just by accidental synchronization, Furiosa is at her doorway, scrubbing at her eye. 

“Slept in?” Toast nearly yells down the hall. Furiosa just looks up and grunts in return, leaning on the doorway. 

“Hey, could you come with us for a second?” Capable talks to her and Furiosa cocks an eyebrow. 

“What do you need help with?” she questions. 

Capable answers in a stale tone with “Joe's room”

Furiosa tries to put her entire morning spent with laying in bed behind her and nods, scuffing her boot. 

Approaching Joe’s doors, Capable pulls out a necklace of keys from under her shirt and explains the situation, to much relief. 

“We’re looking for a distillery. Joseph thinks that booze will sell better than mothers milk” Cheedo and Toast exchange looks and Furiosa’s expression is fruitless. Her tongue still sits heavy and still in her mouth. 

The padlock cracks open and Joe's room is a hollowed out cave with dust. Two busted filing cabinets edge the walls and a mattress rots on a half broken wood frame with four posts and a faded tapestry against the wall. A large window, made out of glass, something completely rare, fills the room with harsh, white sunlight. The room reeks of chalk war paint, making the air nearly too dry to breathe. Cheedo has ended up clutching herself to Toast. 

“It's quite barren” Capable tells Joseph. “There's only one other room and that's for bathing.”

Capable sifts through papers on the floor she’s already seen and Cheedo squeezes Toasts arm harder. “I don't see why a distillery would be here” she scowls. 

“Well this is the only part of the citadel towers that no one really knows about, there's no other place it could be” she sighs. 

Furiosa kneads at her clavicle and coughs in the back of her throat. She looks to the tapestry, with holes that had been eaten away by insects. All five of them had been steering clear of Joe's oversized mattress but she steps towards it, boots scuffing the ground. She eyes one particular tear in the fabric, and steps on the Mattress, making the springs creak. Cheedo gasps at the sound and all three sisters look to Furiosa with dry mouths. Furiosa’s ankles feel awkward and bent in the plush mattress and gets past the fact that Joe had spent nights sleeping comfortably here. Her nose itches and she breathes. 

Dead. Joe is dead. Remember that. Joe is dead. 

She reaches out her metal arm to the tapestry and catches a sharp claw of the longest metal finger in a small hole, barely an inch wide. In one swift pull, she tears the fabric, leaving a destructive gaping hole. 

Behind the tapestry is a steep, pitch black instead of a stone wall. 

“A room?” Capable whispers and steps closer. 

Furiosa turns back to look at her wordlessly, and then steps into the hole she had just torn, encasing her figure in the dark. 

The room smells of that staleness that indicates nothing living has been in this rom for a very long time. 

For half a second Furiosa is a little angry that her eyes don't automatically adjust to this darkness because she nearly trips over an object. 

The object is bulky and mechanic. A generator. 

Not knowing what will happen, she cranks it up, and the generator sputters with effort, turning on 3 lights that flood the room. 

Joseph and the sisters stand behind her and gawk at what Furiosa has found. 

Whatever it is, it looks like the dashboard of a rig; full of switches and dials. Some switches look alien, and dozens of other pieces are all joined together with wire. The panel stretches about 8 feet wide and a chair rests in front of it. 

Joseph steps in behind Furiosa and beams. 

“A computer” he smiles “Radio”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there was this post on tumblr about there being radio in the wasteland, and there was talk about satellites, and how max has some sort of headphones on at the beginning of fury road so I TOTALLY give credit to whoever came up w/ that idea in the first place because it really inspired me to take my fic in that direction.


	15. Chapter 15

“What’s a radio anyways?” chews Toast at the elongated mess hall table. 

Joseph swallows a healthy mouthful and tries his best to explain, “Simply, electrons from a microphone, or now more likely a telegraph, are transmitted to an antenna, we’ll most likely need one on the top of a citadel tower, and the electrons in the antenna produce radio waves, which is picked up by another antenna, and the radio waves are absorbed as electrons which can then be heard as sound by another receiver” 

“Yeah, simply” Toast tucks back into her meal. 

Cheedo, of course, understands immediately, “So like shows?” 

“Yes! Yes like shows” Joseph feeds a corner of a bean bar to Scraps, who eats thankfully and sloppily. 

 

“Why does this matter?” Capable leans in.   
“Well Joe was obviously trying to hide it, so it’s important. The other ruling cities could have radio, having a technological advantage over us, letting them communicate secretly. Hell even raider groups could have radio, giving them an extreme advantage in war.” 

Furiosa’s glassy eyes shift up and she chews at her lip, with a headache battering on at the nape of her skull. with her one hand she adjusts the fabric around her neck to hide bruises, and hopes no one asks. each swallow of breakfast is a hard concrete lump in her throat. 

“So how do we get it working?” she asks hoarsely without looking up.

Joseph continues, talking all about wires and mechanics and beacons; all things that are a bit lost to everyone else. Capable interjects, cutting him off mid sentence.

“Okay, okay, all that's real chrome but we still have gastown breathing down our necks. Think you can make your own distillery?”

Toast nearly spits out her food. “Distillery?” she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, “we making booze now?” 

Capable lets out a slight sigh at the ridiculousness of it but she says “yes, booze. Gastown might take that over mothers milk.” 

Furiosa remembers how feral alcohol will make people. Most wasteland drugs will kill you, and quick, so any type of hooch was high in demand. Vuvalini liquor sold high, made from fruit; the syrup would have any buyer turning their pockets inside out. 

Dag’s silver hair gangles over the table as she sits, late as usual. “Heard you boys were talking hooch. You’ll need produce for that.” She speaks like she’s made the stuff all her life. “We can spare corn, and agave. No potatoes though” 

“How long till we get a decent batch?” Furiosa dips. 

“30 days at least” Joseph blurts 

“Nope. 35, give yourself space for fermentation” Dag reaches over to snatch some flatbread. 

Furiosa coughs in her throat and gathers her dishes, “35 days. Joseph, you’re Already ahead of inventory so you take all you need. Toast, you round up any war pups for building a distillery, set out a shift schedule. Capable’s got the draft for Gastown” 

She lifts herself away from the table when Toast groans “Since when’ve you been all business?” 

Furiosa looks at her with stone eyes before sauntering off and Toast yells again, “And where’s your fool been?!” 

\-----

Furiosa goes where she used to go in her free time, to the now barren garage room without the interceptor. The buzzing of a half burnt out floodlight is giving her a headache and she can see darker splotches on the stone floor where oil has soaked in. It's empty. He left it like this and he knew it. He left her workspace stale and open. She finds nothing. He left nothing. Dust swirls and it's so quiet she can hear her own breathing, which has become annoying; a reminder that she’s always alive and she will always keep moving. 

She's angry and feels like hitting something for half a moment because how could he do that again? Showing up and then leaving, as if he doesn't mean anything or as if she doesn't mean anything. 

The lump in her throat makes the bruises around her neck hurt more so she breathes through her nose and the air is so dry it could suffocate her. She remembers that Max is not a thing. He can choose where he wants to be. Max leaves. It’s who he is. 

She probes at distended veins around her wrists, warm and smooth, and she remembers that his blood coursed through her. She remembers how quiet he is and how she would watch him while he worked, and study his face. She knows every small scar and all the blisters from the sun. The only time she can remember his face relaxed, without a permanent scowl was in his interceptor; when he had the wasteland to himself and he drove like he was king. She felt happy too, with a wide smile and howl through the air. Being around Max makes her feel less alone, like she can let her shoulders down from anxiety and can take a moment to keep her head straight forward, instead of swiveling around for threats.

She doesn't love Max like she loved Val, but she still hopes that he’ll come back and find her.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys remember Hermes?? Toast's secret wasteland girlfriend???

Five days pass and Capable has a draft, Joseph has a small glass bottle of nectar-like booze, and Toast is climbing into what used to be the gigahorse. Begrudgingly, she lets Ace help her in and he scowls, “You sure you’re well enough to drive?” To which she smiled, rolled her eyes, and chewed the toothpick in her mouth while locking the wheel into the steering shaft. He tries again with “Well what about Gastown? You really want to be back there after what happened?”. 

She looks down to him, arm resting on the back of the seat, and she sits like she’s on a throne, “What, Gastown boys? Just a bunch of smegs anyways, It’ll be nice to say hi to them” 

“Now dont be so hasty” Capable interjects while fixing her skirt around her knees “We have to be nice, and pray that they take this deal” 

“Pray…” Toast quietly laughs as her nimble fingers pluck ignition switches, till the machine roars to the thrum of two V8 engines. 

Joseph sits timidly beside capable and clutches the bottle in his hands and his stomach churns over anxiety. Ace lifts himself into the back, perching over the cab and shouts through the sunroof at Joseph, “You okay mate?”

“Yeah... Just a bunch of smegs anyways” Joseph thumbs at the bottle and repeats Toast. 

Furiosa shouts with a hoarse voice to the elevator rats to hold before she climbs the colossal machine on the driver's side and tries her best not be jealous as Toast grips the wheel. She wants to get out, even if it’s just a run to gastown. The assuredness of the clutch and throttle beneath the soles of her feet would feel like heaven. “You remember the docking procedure?” 

“ ‘Course” Toast says cooly while checking under the seat for ammo and knives. Furiosa holds her weight by the open window with her forearm, and gives a slightly worried look that Toast knows too well. “I’ll be fine, yeah? I’ve been to gastown without you before”. Furiosa reluctantly shifts to hop off the vehicle and Toast gives a sly smile and moves the toothpick with her tongue compulsively, “What? No goodbye kiss?” 

Two war boys join Ace up on the back and with the heavy crank of a lever, and the weights on the lift’s chains, they crew is lowered to roll out of the Citadel towers, kicking up dust with the impressive tires. 

To Toast, the air through an open window and the steady shift of the transmission is like cool water and for a moment she forgets being holed up in the infirmary. Of course, the wound starts aching and stinging again but the rev of the engine drowns it out easily. The silence is doing nothing but trouble for Capable and Joseph. At this point his throat has gone dry and the chalk on his palms has sweated off, and Capable has been reading and re-reading her proposal, and rehearsing lines and answers to any possible questions. The only reason they were granted a chance at meeting with Gastown council was the message of “new product” and it was Capable’s job to make sure they fulfilled the interest. Originally she Had asked Adina, the milking representative to come on the run but she shook her head, saying there was a reason she escaped gastown long ago; Joseph was second best for a new face to a new plan. All she could hope is that he wouldn't break anything. 

The crew is given glares and snarls as they roll into the docking bay. Toast Is helped out by the two assisting war boys and she shakes off ever having to be carried. Capable daintily slips out and her red ropes of hair are admired from any guard on their post. She stands with her shoulders pulled back and her jaw tight, and she looks untouchable. 

The messenger, the one that always spits, as Toast remembers him, greets them in a forcedly humble way and Toast stares him down without a word. Without any reciprocation of politeness the messenger grunts and directs the crew to the council room through hallways and corridors. Ace keeps his eyes darting around and his ears vigilant at every sound, and the assisting warboys take after his stance, and hunch their shoulders as they walk. Joseph nearly steps on Capable’s heels multiple times and thumbs at the threadbare sack, heavy with the weight of liquor. Two sets of elevators that creak and scrape against the walls lead them to a high up room, with double doors to it’s entrance. 

Despite being so high up the place still doesn't escape the gastown stench that seeped into every crevice. Large windows, like the ones at the vault were illuminated on the back wall, and silhouetted what was left of the people Eater’s leadership; the only family he had. All three men are all sickly, just as he was, and two of them look nearly as heavy. The third has a face so thin you can see bones, and his eyelids droop over his eyes which have now gone to a pale yellow. The elongated desk they sit behind is higher up than anyone in front of it, on a long barren floor made of lumber and waxed over with a dark, rich shine. Capable marvels at the design of the wood and so do the war boys. She wonders where the trees were grown, how old they were, or what kind. 

Servants behind them close the heavy doors and the vibrations of them locking is sent through their feet. 

“Gastown’s council welcomes Citadel representatives in the case of barter” The thin one says through rotten teeth and thin lips, “The recent damage your imperator has caused has been disregarded due to your agreement to pay for the damage in the worth of product. Today you bear us with new means of barter”. His corpselike fingers adjust spectacles on his nose. 

“First, as you are guests in business, we toast” a heavier one says and he motions at two servants, who pad over barefooted with a case of crystal glasses, displaying them to each member of the citadel crew, allowing them to pluck one of their liking into their hands. The crystal looks foreign in Ace’s hands but he admires it. Toast turns the cup in the light and see’s tiny rainbows tracing over her fingers. The second servant Quietly walks to the crew and Toast’s heart aches when she sees the dark hair on his head and the tired look in his eyes. Toast hates gastown for many reasons, but the first is for keeping servants. They boy holds a thin, elongated picture of water, which is probably citadel water, considering they would never serve up the bile that comes out of Gastown faucets. Capable steps forward before the boy has a chance to pour water into her cup. 

“Actually,” she asserts, holding the cup delicately in her hands, “We’ve brought our own drink today. As a gift of gratitude of course”. Her voice is sweet so the large councilmember waves away the servant and Capable motions for the bottle from Joseph. He slips the heavy thing out of the sack and to her. Capable gingerly passes the bottle to the thin councilman and he eyes the liquid skeptically. It shines a golden light through the bottle and he uncorks it, pouring some in his own cup and then handing it to the dark haired boy. Immediately he drinks, and tries to choke back the burning sensation of alcohol on his tongue. After a few painfully long minutes, the boy does infact not fall dead, and therefore the thin man pours his own cup again, and then to his relatives. The each swirl the liquid and smell before tasting. The thin one holds his glass up to the light and admires the glow, though his face could never show any admiration or emotion for that matter.

“We are aware that alcohol is already a product widely on the market, but ours is as pure as the water pumped from our aquifer. We estimate that at the value of this product it can be bartered for three times the worth of a unit of mothers milk.” Capable explains poetically.

One of the fatter descendants of the people eater lets the liquor sit on his tongue and it tastes sweet, of fruit. The thin one sets down his cup and sighs heavily, taking his glasses off and waves them away, “If you’re here to barter over you debt of which you still haven't cleared, we’re through. you’ll be shown the way out” 

Capable thinks of Adina and the sounds of milking machines, and then marches forward, facing the sickly man and does not wear a scowl, or a pretty face, but an expression to kill. “We offer three times as much of liquor than you want in mothers milk” she sets the document in front of him with a strong hand. 

“We have clearly stated that we will under no circumstances barter over debt-” 

“When youre on the benefiting side of barter, you don't get to argue” She speaks. The man looks at her disdainfully and Capable keeps a hard face. 

“In the agreements between the three powers you are completely out of line for your level” 

“Gastown will die without Citadel water. You will agree to this ultimatum or let yourself whither” 

Ace grinds his teeth together. This girl is abrasive and this was supposed to be peaceful. The Citadel is supposed to be presented as a passive power. Threats like this can’t be afforded.

Capable feels sick over giving threats. She hates, hates ever thinking of people dying at her own hand, hates it so much that bile bubbles up through her stomach and her head feels light. Capable though, is very good at acting and does not show one bit of anxiety. Gastown has stepped all over her and her people, for seasons upon seasons. At this point she knows, deep in her gut that agreeableness does not earn power and that's what the Citadel, and the milking mothers have been struggling without. So Capable carries the threat of a heavy rock behind her back and speaks like she knows they will listen to her. 

She also knows what days without water trade does on the inside of gastown. When she was a girl, getting sick off of tainted water without anything crystal clear from the citadel, the anger came rearing up to people eater. There were a lot of times where that man had almost died, but that instance was the closest. 

“Are you threatening a war?” He nearly shouts to her.

“You don't have the resources for war against our military. You know this”. She doesn't know if this is true really, but she knows that ammo, guzzoline, and soldiers are never plentiful and comes at a high price, and Gastown leadership is extremely frugal. “You will agree to the terms of clearing our debt by accepting three times the amount of Alcohol in trade for the original request of mothers milk.” 

The skeletal-like leader does not talk back, and the other two thumb at jewellery on their suits. After leaning over to one another and whispering, an act that to Capable seems childish, all three leaders scrawl their signatures at the bottom of the proposal document with a quill, and there is silence for a moment. 

“Our product and trade coordinator will be in touch” He waves them away.

Capables fists unclench and the knot in her stomach finally loosens. Toast clicks her tongue and Joseph wipes sweat from his temples. Guards escort the crew out of the council room and they are lead through hallways again, through dim lights and creaking pipes. 

“Aye gastown boy!” Toast barks at a the guard leading them. “Think you could show me where the lavatory is?”. Capable Rolls her eyes and wishes she wasn't so blunt. 

“Can't do that. Have to get you back to your vehicle.” 

“Come on now, I think you boys owe me since you plucked me off the wastes don't you?” 

The guard behind them makes a noise and says “You show em’ the way out, I’ll take her. This way” 

“Thank the gods, I’ve had to piss for hours…” Toast mumbles and Capable rolls her eyes again. “You wait up for me then?” 

Ace nods back. 

After The guard awkwardly escorting Toast, and Toast resisting to give him a right hook to the jaw for good measure, they arrive at the lavatory rooms and he steps in with her. 

“Back off won't you mate?” She tells him “I am a general, think I can take care of myself thank you very much” 

The guard shuffles and turns away, almost looking sheepish at the stature of Toast and she laughs a little under her breath. 

She goes through the tedious struggle of the many belts around her waist, then complete relevance, and then strapping her trousers back up again. As she’s about to leave the door of a stall, small strong hands grip around her mouth and waist, yanking her body back. She’s shoved up against a dirty corner of pipes and though her heart is racing, she is thankful when she sees the sun tanned, freckled face of Hermes, wasteland messenger. Finally she takes her hand away from Toast’s mouth and she puts a finger to her lips. 

“The fuck are you doing around up here?” Toast whispers. 

“My job” hermes whispers back and wipes damaged hair away from her face. 

“Look I know we’ve been meeting up here and there but I have to get back to my crew, and, er, gastown bathroom aint’ exactly romantic” 

“Shhh” Hermes puts her finger to her lips again, “Be quieter, I need to tell you something, it’s important. And we both know you hate anything romantic anyways” 

Toast’s toothpick perks up when she gives a sly smile. 

Hermes knows more about the wasteland powers than anyone; from small clan disputes to wanted men, to trade agreements between the three cities. It’s probably the reason someone as small as her has survived so long, as she is payed healthily to keep others secrets. 

“Well don’t tell me if it’ll get you in any trouble, I don't want to hear it” 

Hermes gets closer to her face and her teeth are clenched, “Look, I’m telling you this because I care about you.” 

Toast is a little stunned and speechless. 

Hermes pulls the Citadel’s general close, by the collar of her shirt, and puts her lips close to her ear to whisper in a thick old world Australian accent. 

“Gastown’s been plotting against the Citadel with Bulletfarm. They want your blood”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I know that this ending, and probably this entire part of the series may kinda seem pointless but I PROMISE that there is a point to this, trust me :*


End file.
